In the Dark
by JuggleGeese
Summary: A Karen/Castle ship. Plot: Frank saves a teen girl who becomes the force that reunites Frank and Karen, taking place after the season two finale. Murder, insidious experiments and love are all fiery and alive in Hell's Kitchen.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Frank Castle stumbles through the smog filled air in a mostly deserted warehouse park in Hell's Kitchen. His leg wound is bleeding through his rudimentary bandaging. Only a few more blocks until he reaches the subsidized housing apartments that transition into rundown houses from the fifties, most of them abandoned like these warehouses. Home sweet home, Frank thinks bitterly.

The light flickers from the lone lamppost on this street. It's easy for Frank to believe that he's completely alone in the world: that the actions of those on top have come crashing down on all of them. It's not a far push from where Frank is standing; the abandoned buildings are nothing more than the skeletons of the people who were abandoned along with them. Not a soul in sight, just rotting garbage in the overwhelmed dumpsters and the occasional piece of trash floating softly across the pavement, stirred on by the soft breeze. He breathes, the stench making his breaths shallower than usual.

He had just disbanded a kidnap-and-ransom chain from a local rich neighbourhood. He rescued a couple and killed the thugs only to have the rich folk run away screaming- afraid of their saviour. He wonders why he even bothers helping people like that.

A scream rips through the still night air.

Frank has his 9mm out, safety off, and is prepared in a flash. Rooftops: clear. Windows: clear. Street: clear. He hears the faint sound of crunching cartilage followed by a distinctly juvenile male voice.

"Fuck you, bitch! You'll regret that." Frank steps lightly down a deserted alleyway following the sound. His gun is at the ready, placed in a safe direction.

A teen has a small girl shoved up against an old green dumpster; his nose is bleeding from where she shoved her palm up into his face crushing the cartilage into his skull. That'll never heal properly Frank observes with a slight satisfaction.

The kid doesn't notice Frank's approach, Frank is way too good to be heard or seen. The kid holds the girl back while he fumbles with the belt on his ripped jeans. The girl isn't more than 5'4" but she is putting up a good fight. He contemplates whether or not he should just shoot the punk in the head and be done with it. One shot, one kill. But the girl would be caught up in the splatter of blood.

Deciding after only a second of contemplation, Frank fires a shot into the kid's thigh. It explodes, his bullet probably shattered the bone, and the punk crumples in a pile of screeching sobs. Blood spills from the wound, and from this distance Frank estimates the damage to be even more extensive than he had hoped. This, kids, is what happens when the big bad Punisher decides he doesn't like you.

The girl, now free, runs. However, to Frank's surprise, she doesn't run screaming away from him but instead towards him. Her long black hair spills from its ponytail.

 _My God,_ Frank thinks, _this girl is fifteen at the most._

She reaches him, her dark eyes livid, but doesn't look at him. Instead she stands beside him, only a few feet from her attacker. She turns on her heel to face the sack of shit that is now twitching on the ground and whining. Her brow is firm.

"Finish him," she commands. She doesn't even look at Frank when she says it, only at the punk.

The punk, with a facial tattoo nonetheless, looks up with pleading eyes at Frank. "No man, come on! Please, don't-" Frank shoots him perfectly between the eyes, stopping the kid's pleas for mercy mid-sentence.

The girl's reaction is somewhat understated. Her breath is released suddenly. She doesn't look like a sadist who would enjoy watching such a blatant murder, but she does look mildly relieved.

It was over so quickly, just how Frank likes it. He studies the victim for a moment, watching her silent tears. Was she repulsed? Afraid?

Frank realizes he doesn't have time for this. He intervened. It was quick, a little messy but that couldn't be helped, and effective. The orange of the streetlight at the end of the alley plays with the reflective quality of the puddle of blood now formed around the kid. It's a perfect still of what the city really is: gritty, rotten oatmeal topped with violent bloodshed, three meals a day.

Frank, not much for small talk, turns and begins walking away from the fresh corpse lying in the street: just another wonderful smell to add to the undefinable sensory allure of this fucking city. However, the girl decides to follow him.

She stands about a foot shorter than him, weighs about a hundred pounds less, and yet is about as unhinged as he. This, although singularly interesting to Frank (it's not every day that you meet someone as comfortable with death as you are), is none of his current concern. The stab wound to his thigh takes priority.

Her straight black eyebrows (that aren't arched like the other girls no matter how hard she tries), are knitted together. "Hey mister!" she calls out in her high and feminine voice. She doesn't look like her voice; it's too girly and high. She is all about black on black with some camo thrown on for effortless punk style. She kind of wishes she was an alto to match her exterior. "Hey Sir!"

She has to hurry after him to catch him; his strides are twice the length of hers. He just turns the corner when she is able to grab hold of the sleeve of his leather jacket. He looks down at her, his brown eyes harsh and his forehead in a frown. His hair is shaved on the sides and kept short on top, the marine style. He looks like a mean son of a bitch, but she's not afraid.

"Mr. Punisher, Sir, I wanted to talk to you," he blinks once at her.

"What'd you want to talk to me for?" his voice is gruff and deep.

She swallows the anxiety this voice evokes. "I just wanted to thank you for saving me, Sir."

He laughs once, his lips twist into a sarcastic smile. He doesn't reply but instead starts walking. However, she's not too keen to give up.

"You look like you're bleeding; I could sew that shut for you. For repayment," she adds at the end. Her appeasing tone is largely ignored by Frank. He keeps walking, favouring his other side. She nearly trips over a garbage bag.

"Look, I'm a pretty good seamstress. Cindy, my Mom, alters wedding dresses so I've learned about stitching pretty well." She holds out, still hopeful. Frank cannot understand why she's following him like a lost puppy. The only difference between the two is that he likes dogs.

Finally, after a moment of silence where she stares at him intently, does he decide to speak. "Patching up flesh is different from sewing poufy shit."

She smiles up at him, satisfied that he replied. "I can learn!" Her enthusiasm is cute, but grating on his nerves.

He stops. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Like calling the police?"

She contemplates this for a moment. "Well, I was thinking of doing that later. I'll even get some tears going for them. It'll be fun."

He just shakes his head. "Don't your parents want you home? It's not safe out here."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I know that. I've already been attacked today."

"So then why not just go home?" he asks.

"Cindy and Leopold are just my foster parents and they know I can handle myself."

He shuts up, hoping that if he just ignores her she'll go away. He turns right at the subsidized housing where a few guys lay out on the lawn high as kites. She still follows him. He walks past the neighbourhood tabby cat and it runs under the nearest porch. She still is following him. He turns to the ancient Victorian style house with peeling white trim and faded blue siding; although in this light it's nearly impossible to tell anything more about the place. It has a habit of smelling like mothballs and burnt bread.

He unlatches the fence and walks through. Sadly, the girl follows him still; her black combat boot rip-offs are soft on the patchy brown grass. She latches the gate behind her.

"So this is your place? Why not go through the front door?" she asks as Frank walks around the sparse backyard and fishes for his key to the basement door.

"Because this isn't my place, I rent the basement from a blind old lady and she lives in the main house." He pushes the door open with his shoulder and flicks on one light. The girl enters after him, and although he's not overly happy about it he doesn't stop her either.

The Punisher's lodgings are about as personalized as a prison cell. To the left of the door is a futon that has a perfectly made bed on it, to the right is a small kitchen that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 70's. The kitchen is made up of the very basics: white fridge and stove, faded ivory cupboards and gold handles, a small set of dishes in a cabinet without a door, and a table that is loaded with artillery- that's all that lives in the kitchen space.

"Wow, a really classy place you got here Mr. Punisher." The girl walks over to the fridge as Frank unloads his guns and puts trigger locks on a few. She pulls on the worn white handles of the fridge and it opens to reveal the most basic food she's ever seen. Eggs, bread, hamburgers and leftover take-out food, he doesn't even have condiments, she remarks to herself.

"I would say help yourself, but you won't be staying." His voice is so low and scraping that she is almost freaked out by his intensity. Instead she plays it off.

"Welcoming too? Wow, the girls must really love you." She sees him flinch.

She frowns but decides not to pursue it. Instead she picks at the chipped black nail polish on her pinky finger. The light is harsh and white, like the lights in shitty office buildings, the only thing this basement has over those offices is the lack of sweat stains on cheap cotton button-downs. But this basement still isn't much better, she thinks.

Frank carefully checks the mag and then the barrel, comfortable that there's no ammunition in the gun he locks it and places it on the table. He runs his hands under the tap with some dish soap to clean off any traces of lead from his hands. Then, he gets to what he really wasn't looking forward to.

He brings the supplies and sits on slippery white tile of his kitchen.

"What're you doing?" she asks, suddenly suspicious.

"I'm sewing up my damn leg," he grunts his reply.

The wound has mostly stopped bleeding, but he still has to cut away the top part of his pants to get to it. The girl doesn't look away. She seems fascinated by the graze left behind by the kidnapper's knife on his leg. It wasn't super deep, but it'll still be a bitch to fix.

He cleans it while gritting his teeth, the girl just looks concerned.

Then: the sewing.

He picks up the appropriate needle and his favourite dissolvable stitches. He prepares the needle and himself. It's mind over pain. Nothing he hasn't done a thousand times before.

"Oh, Lord above, you're going to do that on yourself?! Are you _actually_ crazy?"

"Be quiet," he responds evenly, "You'll wake Judith."

"You're talking about the old woman? The old, blind woman who you rent from? Doesn't she know you're the Punisher?" her voice is insistent but considerably more hushed compared to what it was before.

"No," is all he says in reply.

"Wow. Well that's really some kind of special."

He doesn't reply, but instead pierces his skin and starts threading the needle through.

"If you're gonna be sick, do it in the sink," he says through gritted teeth.

But, to his surprise, she isn't. Instead she sits down next to him. She hands him the glistening whiskey bottle he has on hand for such an occasion. "Drink up. I'll finish your stitches."

He gives her a long look, one where he considers throwing her sorry ass out of his place, but instead gives her the needle, but only after she finishes pulling latex gloves on. "Don't pull it too tight."

She smiles at him, and the gesture makes him look away. She begins her work and Frank sits back on his elbows. The floor is cold but being with another human warms the space.

"So, I had an older brother once. Your kind, tough and manly," she snorts, "But a wuss when it came to stuff like puppies and blood. I patched him up a few times, never this extreme but still. I never actually had to put in stitches." Frank doesn't say anything and she continues stitching. He's confused by her sudden change of tone, but reminds himself that he doesn't care. The light flickers. "I loved that marshmallow of a brother. He was nearly nine years older so he kind of raised me, you know?"

Her bittersweet smile is painful for Frank to watch.

"I loved having a big brother. I think siblings are the greatest teachers. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to write my name in cursive. I don't know what only children do, not having siblings to learn from or to teach."

She falls into silence.

Frank watches her work, her brow creased in concentration.

She finishes her stitching in silence before going and discarding her latex gloves and washing the powder off of her hands.

He watches her get ready to leave. He chides himself for being soft. He should've kicked her out, never let her follow him home. Somehow his efforts to scold himself feel half-assed.

"Well, anyways, I'll be heading back to that corpse in the street and call the police. Thanks for the whole saving me thing." Her humour from before has dwindled, and Frank can't help but miss it.

"Hey, kid," he calls after her. She turns and stands in the open doorway, looking at him. "What's your name?"

She smiles, a little happier now. "I'm Skylar, but everyone calls me Sky."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Karen Page sits at her desk in Ben's old office, a blank screen blinking back at her. She brought in bourbon this morning and yet, although somewhat inebriated, she is unable to formulate anything to write about. The rise and fall of Fisk's empire- s _o_ over done at this point, everyone who has an internet connection has written about it. The kidnap-and-ransom chain in the upper end- but that's been disbanded now, so that's old news.

The Punisher?

Karen sighs heavily and takes a sip from the hefty crystal glass in her hand. Her desk is reasonably uncluttered; her wonderful skills of organization and strict alphabetization helped when corralling this office into some semblance of order.

Her long blonde hair is pushed back behind her ears as she watches the harsh whiteness of the blankness. _Harsh whiteness of the blankness_ , she wonders, _it's some miracle that I'm a reporter at all._ But what is a reporter without a story, without a cause?

Of course she has a story; she has a cause, one that she believes in more than she probably should. She wrinkles her nose trying to push back the flood of memories. Him in the hospital bed nearly dead, she sees him in the courthouse wearing his well fitted suit, she remembers him at her apartment and how he saved her life.

 _He's some knight._

But, much against her will, she can't hate him. Even after he murdered his old buddy from the army, she can't help but remember that _horrible_ song he played in the car- just for her to know that she wasn't alone. How could a heartless killer do that, how could he care so much?

A soft knock comes at her door.

Startled, the glass is quickly hidden. She panics for a moment, busy composing herself, and says, "Yeah, come in."

The door opens to reveal a small teen girl. Her raven hair is woven into a tight bun and she looks like one of the emo kids with tight black pants, a black tank top and an oversized military jacket thrown on top. She looks hesitantly into the room.

"Karen Page?" she asks quietly.

Karen clears her throat. "Yes."

The girl heaves a dramatic sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord: that would have been embarrassing if it wasn't you."

The girl walks in, all casual comfort, while scanning the room with a feigned disinterest.

Karen waits for a moment. "And you are?"

The girl laughs, "Oh yeah, sorry, I'm Skylar Handal. You can call me Sky."

Karen's eyebrows lift slightly. "Okay, Sky, what can I help you with?"

The girl motions to a chair in front of Karen's desk. Karen nods, still very cautiously curious. The girl sits down, her tiny frame dwarfed in the size of the chair- and in her ridiculous jacket.

"So I'm told you are looking for stories about the Punisher."

The breath hitches in Karen's throat.

Her hope can barely be trampled down.

Sky smiles, her eyes only mildly malignant, "Ah yes," she says, "I was hoping that would be your reaction."

Karen takes a moment to compose herself- careful to steady her breathing- before speaking, "Who told you I was looking for stories?"

Sky's smile widens, "There's this super nice cop, Brett I think, that when he heard that I wanted to talk to the press he suggested a woman at the Bulletin by the name of Karen Page." She twirls a loose spiral of hair around her finger.

"Foggy," she murmurs under her voice with a smile. He must have mentioned her to Brett.

"Hmm?" Karen looks up to see Sky's confused face.

"Oh, no it's nothing," Karen picks up a pen and looks up to meet Sky's waiting eyes, "You have a story about the Punisher?"

Sky's eyes come alive, glistening with excitement. "You bet I do. He saved me from being raped by the asshole I was on a date with. It was dark, I was alone and I didn't think anyone would come when I screamed, but he did. He shot and killed him." Sky gauges Karen's response. Although Karen looks mildly displeased, she doesn't look overly surprised.

Sky continues, "I got to have a nice chat with him, although it was a little one-sided at times, when I followed him to his house," she rolls her eyes, "Well, the basement of his sketchy house."

Karen pauses from taking notes manually, to look up at Sky. She was clearly shocked. "You know where Frank lives?" Her flustered excitement makes Sky pull back a little.

"Yeah," she says hesitantly, "I patched him up from an earlier fight. I literally stitched a wound on his leg." She waits a moment, watching Karen carefully. "Frank? On a first name basis with our friendly neighbourhood Punisher are we?"

Karen's face gives away too much. "No, no, it's just that...I was surprised that he would give away his hidden location to someone he doesn't even know."

Sky's raised eyebrows say all her words don't, "Uh-huh. _Okay then_. Yeah I know where he is, do you have a dying need to interview him yourself?"

"No! I just, that's interesting, is all," she clears her throat, "I need a more in depth recounting if I'm going to write an article. Is there anything else?"

Sky lists off a few more details, occasionally looking up at the ceiling for dramatic effect. After thirty minutes of miniscule details given, Sky gets up to leave.

"Oh one more thing," Sky throws over her shoulder, "I can totally understand why you want to find _Frank_ so badly. Flowery girls like you always go for the bad boy in black leather." She winks theatrically before shutting the door behind her.

 _You have got to be kidding me._

Frank scans the front page, but instead of his mugshot or a photo of him in court he sees himself in his black suit and white skull, his face turned away from the camera. He stands on top of a building with the night sky a thick blanket behind him. Frank knows immediately where this is, it was the night Red and his crazy girlfriend were fighting off the Yakuza.

The last time he had seen her.

He flips to the article and scans it.

"...saves girl in need..."

"He [Frank Castle] protects the innocent..."

"...girl bravely stitches his wounds in kitchen..."

"...a new breed of hero."

It wasn't until Frank read who wrote this glowing editorial that he felt anything besides sarcastic humour. All humour falls away as he comes up short. Karen Page, reporter for the bulletin. It's almost funny, the woman who was done with him, who couldn't forgive him for what he did, all of a sudden writes this piece? How could it be possible?

Night is falling as Frank tucks the folded newspaper under his arm and trudges home. He was going to go out looking for trouble but his resolve has faltered in the past hour. He buys a greasy hot dog from a stand on a now secluded corner, wolfing it down like a dying man. He surveys the cityscape, and although Hell's Kitchen is somewhat alive with activity, Frank struggles to fully realize the phrase "city that never sleeps". It's true that his maniacal heroic mischief is done primarily in the dark, but at this hour all the sane are asleep.

Strangely, Frank's mind wanders to Red. It's weird to think of it, but that vigilante in a red suit with fucking _horns_ is the closest thing Frank has to a friend. His Marine friends are...gone. His family, his suburban friends disappeared like mist from a bath. This life he leads, if you could call it a life, is isolating at the best of times. And the closest thing Frank has to a friend is a guy running around Hell's Kitchen in long johns.

He shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips.

He walks silently, his head down, avoiding streetlights.

Turning the corner he stops, sensing something.

"Hello, Mr. Punisher, Sir."

He groans silently, his eyes drooping in annoyance. "I thought I got rid of you, kid."

A shadow materializes and from his porch and out comes the tiny kid from last week, Sky.

She smiles like she's greeting an old friend, "Wow, you made me wait _forever._ Were you out killing bad guys? Saving kittens? Rescuing damsels in long, flowing dresses?"

"How many times do I have to tell you to piss off before you actually do?" he says gruffly, although not altogether angry.

She laughs. "You've never actually told me in so many words, so I'm just assuming you don't mind my continued existence in your general vicinity." She shrugs and scrunches her face up into a wrinkly smile.

"A lot of fancy words there, hoping I don't know their meaning?" But Frank can't help but be slightly amused.

"Well," she says, pretending to ponder, "I mean, you keep talking to me so I must assume you agree with the former statement. Besides, my fancy public schooling has to count towards something in life, if only the limited expansion of my aforementioned vocabulary."

He has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, "You done?"

She crosses her arms, "Well I have to warm you up or else you would dismiss my proposition out of hand."

He raises his eyebrows, "Proposition?"

She gets suddenly excited, "Oh yeah! And it's a good one. Here it is: teach me how to fight."

A pause...before the Punisher laughs.

He actually laughs out loud, but stops when he sees her serious face. "Why would I do that?"

"Because not only will you _not_ have to protect me from future assholes, which is a good investment since I'll undoubtedly be getting into more trouble, but you also get the pleasure of having a newly adopted little sister to harass and teach random shit to. Also you look like you need something in your life besides murdering people and cleaning guns, and I provide endless conversation."

"Yeah, I'm starting to believe that."

She frowns theatrically. "What do you say?

He thinks for a moment. "Why do you want to learn how to fight?"

She shrugs. "I'm a pretty good fighter, but anyone too much bigger can still overpower me. I want to become a gun slinging, knife wielding, five-foot nothing female death-machine. Not to mention that since everyone can be a superhero in this town nowadays I had better capitalize before my generation becomes self-aware." She snickers at her own joke.

Frank, serious and intense, makes her laughter stop short.

"You really think I'd teach you any of that?" he asks quietly, "I'm military trained and I've seen more than my fair share of combat." He looks away, his face pained. "You don't want the skills I have because those skills are what makes me a monster." He is surprised by how emotional this makes him.

Her sympathy is obvious, but she tries to hide it.

After a moment she speaks.

"I was never afraid of the dark, do you know why?" She doesn't give him any time to answer. "It was because I always believed that the monsters in my closet weren't there to get me, but instead were there to protect me and take me away." She breathes heavily, calming herself. "You aren't the only one with a tragic backstory, okay? I just want to do something more about it than just sit here in despair. If that means I become the like monsters I believe protected me when I was a child, then there is no better outcome in my mind."

Frank stares at her. She stares right back. Her tiny frame is clad in all black again, her hair is in a tight ponytail and she looks as determined as any soldier he's ever seen. She's so short, so young, and yet already she's seen too much and faced too much tragedy. It isn't right, none of it. But what can Frank do anyways? Teaching her how to handle a .22 may help her feel better, but why should he waste his time when he could be out helping people in imminent danger? He could be killing the real bad guys instead of playing shrink to a high schooler.

But how else is Frank going to get rid of her?

"It stops when I say it stops, if I tell you to leave I will never see your face again, you hear me?" his tone is hard and unfriendly but Sky just lights up with a huge smile. "It won't be fun, okay? And don't you go running off telling your friends, this is a onetime deal."

Frank tries not to think about how easily she convinced him with her sob story. She may actually have hit a nerve, strange enough.

She holds out her hand and Frank eventually takes it. Her tiny hand still holds firm as she shakes like she means it. "You have yourself a deal, Mr. Punisher."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"You know, using me as a surrogate for talking to the Punisher really can't be healthy." Sky sips her honeyed black tea while staring Karen down. They are in their usual café, halfway between Karen's office and Sky's high school. They sit in front of big glass windows with classic gold lettering painted on offering an assortment of beverages and pastries. Sunlight plays across Karen's pale face and hair, unlike with Sky whose colouring only gets richer and more honeyed with the light. Her dark eyes are playful as she sets her teacup down on the worn wooden table with a clank.

Karen blushes. At this point she can't very well deny what Sky keeps saying. That girl has an uncanny way of getting into your head and pushing your buttons. She wonders if that's why Frank trusts her.

"I can't talk to him," she sips her tea, thinking, "But I do enjoy our meetings." It's true, Karen loves this time. Every Tuesday and Saturday at four like clockwork, this seat in their little coffee shop, Sky tells about the recent things she's been doing with the rogue vigilante.

Sky snorts, playing with a delicate silver ring on her finger (it has a skull on it). "What are you, thirteen? Can't you tell him you like him without getting all flustered?"

Karen, in response, is very flustered. "Umm, what? Well I don't think I actually have, like, any actual romantic feelings-" Sky cuts her off with her laughter.

Sky, at the beginning of their meeting, finally gave Karen Frank's address. And now that seems to be where this conversation keeps going. Karen sighs.

"You really are an adorable person, but I feel like there's something lurking underneath though. Most people aren't drawn to the character of Frank Castle much past liking that he kills bad guys." Karen tries hushing her, worried that people may hear. Sky just rolls her eyes. "But it's the truth, isn't it?"

Karen glares at her, her blue eyes electric. "I may be interested in Frank Castle, but I'm not _drawn_ to him." Karen sits back and gazes out the window, her floral blouse bright rose in the dying afternoon light. Sky examines her. She's definitely more than what Sky was originally expecting. She's surprised by how similar they are, deeply flawed just varying degrees better at hiding it. They're both fascinated by the same man, for different reasons. And Sky certainly isn't in love with him, but the same couldn't be said of the woman sitting across from her.

"Can I ask you a question?" Karen probes without looking at her.

Sky shrugs, taking her cooler tea in hand. "Fire away."

"Are you an orphan?"

Sky chokes on her tea. "I'm sorry, what?"

Karen blinks but doesn't back down. "I never hear about your parents. Never know why your parents let you out with a serial killer- vigilante at odd hours of the night, so it just makes sense."

Sky considers this a moment.

"I told the Punisher part of the story, so I guess I can tell you." She sets down her tea and runs a hand through her unfastened black hair. "My mother was a first generation American, she was Latino and really pretty, but the kind of pretty that just made you like her, not hate her or envy her for her beauty. She worked as a lab tech although her big dream was to become a researcher and biochemist," she pauses and takes a deep breath. Karen watches. She's definitely interested. "My father was a recent immigrant, Arabic, from Egypt, and an Orthodox Christian. They met because he planned on going to school for poli-sci and then becoming a priest. That all changed when he met the 20-year old who would become my mother. He was only a year older, and they quickly married. From everything that I have heard and remember, they were deeply in love. They had my brother a year later."

Karen frowns, "I didn't know you had a brother."

Sky nods, without looking at her. "I was born eight years later. My parents were the best kind of people, they really were, and I grew up learning songs about potatoes in Spanish and how to pray in Arabic. They died suddenly in a gas leak at the university where they both worked." Sky almost can't continue. "I was out with my brother, I was ten and he was eighteen. Luckily we had the house, but my brother couldn't support us. He went out all the time, trying to work three jobs, but soon he fell in with the wrong people."

Karen hates to ask, but she can't resist. "Is he still alive?"

Sky shrugs. "I know he wouldn't walk out on me, so that's the only explanation for him never coming home. That was two years ago. I lie about having foster parents to the people that ask. How can a fifteen year-old live on her own? But I make it okay, I do still have the house, and as long as no one looks too closely everything is okay."

Karen fights back the flood of sympathy. Sky just watches her closely, worried she said too much. "But can't you go to the police? File a missing person's report..." Karen searches her eyes.

She shakes her head. "And risk being sent off to a home? We've been doing this a few weeks, wouldn't you know by now how well that would _not_ go over?" Sky shakes her head again. "Anyone who knows anything about me knows I am not okay with admitting defeat, not okay with someone telling me how to run my life. I couldn't survive there."

She pulls at her hair. Karen stirs her coffee. Fresh beans are being ground and the smell of coffee is powerful. Karen finally breaks the silence. "I'm sorry, Sky."

Sky shoots to her feet. Little does Karen see that she's actually fighting back tears. "I don't want your sympathy, lady. I just wanted to go tell the world that Frank Castle isn't as much of a monster as everyone would have you believe, and now that that's done I don't know why we keep talking." She grabs her bag and makes to leave the shop but Karen stands too.

"Sky, wait- Sky!" She grabs her by the elbow, and Sky turns on her, all fiery anger. "Maybe we get together because we are friends, maybe because you need someone to talk to."

Sky pries her fingers off her arm, her dark brows low over her livid eyes. "Fuck off." And then she turns and is out the door.

Karen deflates; leaning next to the door. She looks at her out of the window, following her movements with her eyes. She waves and tries to stop a taxi, but it just scuttles by. She wipes at her eyes.

In a moment, it all goes to hell.

A black van with tinted windows pulls to the curb- like it had been waiting just up the road and three men in black ski masks jump out and run towards Sky. Immediately Karen starts reacting. One grabs her by the arm, but she kicks him in the knee, making his leg buckle, but he doesn't let go. Another grabs for her but she swings and gets him in the nose, causing a burst of blood to spurt from his nose.

Karen's pulse is racing, her panic clear in her motion. Karen hurriedly searches her purse, throwing lipstick and the like out before getting her gun. She pushes through the door just as the third guy gets a hood on Sky, and the three pull her into the waiting van.

"STOP! GET BACK!" She screams. Karen takes aim, careful to make sure no one is in the line of bullets, and opens fire, hitting one of them in the shoulder as he's sliding the door closed, but the van starts moving away in spite of her efforts, the door still partially open.

Karen runs into the street, barely avoiding cars stopping around her, vaguely registering people screaming, and shoots, hoping to hit a tire, but instead just dents the fender as the van turns a corner and barrels away.

She is left in the street, panting, with the gravity of what just happened in the space of a few seconds crashing down around her. Her blood is rushing to her head. They come here every Tuesday and Saturday like clockwork. Someone noticed. She tries to keep from vomiting or crying, but hot tears streak down her face.

Sky was taken. Someone wanted her. Someone has people to do such things; which means that person has power, and lots of it. Sky has made a dangerous enemy. _Sky was taken._

And Karen couldn't stop it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Karen could list a hundred different reasons why this was a bad idea.

"We're looking Karen, but we don't have any leads. The girl barely exists." Brett had said to her when she had come, specifically to him, for help. His voice was convincing, sympathetic, like always.

Sky pretty damn well exists to Karen.

Karen runs her tongue over her bare and chapped lips, combs a hand through her softly curled hair. She tries not to think about the sorry attempt she's making to stay seamless and together. Maybe it hurts because she sees so much of herself in Sky, maybe it's because Sky never asked for help but Karen knew how much she needed it, maybe it's a whole damn lot of things. Karen doesn't know.

But it's that primal desperation, the motherly instinct- that "kill or be killed" reaction that pushes her feet along with a kind of impatient worry. Every moment may be too late, she should go faster, Sky is in danger, every second counts. Karen can't help but fidget as she walks, almost jogging, as the dark day falls into an unsettling night. There's something festering in this city: and it's the people, like a corrupted wound that bleeds when picked at, the people come out of the woodwork and pull anything they can into the insurmountable darkness. Karen feels an unguided and restless hatred for the people who are the maggots rotting in the garbage of this city. She feels it burning in the pit of her empty stomach (she couldn't bring herself to eat anything) and she lets that powerful loathing burn on a barely tamed flame propelling her forwards. It's so much easier, she knows, than thinking too deeply. If she would think, at all, she would be crushed under the assumed weight of her failure to protect Sky.

She swipes at her eyes, annoyed at the wayward tears. She probably looks like such a mess.

 _Who are you trying to impress, Karen?_

She turns the corner, a bunch of junkies catcall her across the street from their peeling white two-story apartment. Their clothes hang dirty and loose on their heroin-thin frames. Repugnant, a pathetic excuse for people, they can barely stand steadily and yet they pick on Karen.

 _Just try something, assholes. I would love to take my anger out on you._

She just walks on, acutely aware of the need for urgency. A folded piece of paper, now worn from handling, is clutched in her sweaty palm. The last thing Sky gave her before...

She finds it easily enough. She doesn't know what she was expecting. The flaky dusty blue paint on ancient wooden siding with yellowed trim and a wrap-around porch is not really the most dignified dwelling for...him. It smells different from the neighbourhood too, less like stale urine and more like freshly cut grass and burnt toast. The Victorian house was clearly an anachronism in this neighbourhood of druggies and petty criminals. Karen can almost be amused by this place he chose.

Sky warned her to head straight back and to avoid the main entrance. Karen, in heels, begins picking her way over the slightly patchy grass towards a white fence. She balances on the balls of her feet to stop the heel of her black pumps from sinking into the soft ground. She can only imagine just how dignified she looks.

She gently latches he gate behind her, trying to be as inconspicuous and innocuous as possible. Her heart is beating a little too fast, her mouth is a little too dry, and she worries a little too much. She licks her lips again, straightens her pencil skirt and precariously skirts down the slight incline to the backyard. When she reaches the door she can't hardly believe that she's already there. She tries to adjust herself- but why? Because she...she can't come up with any reason that she would be comfortable admitting to herself.

A deep breath- then she knocks decisively twice. Immediately she regrets it. She should have waited, thought about what she would say, because what will she say to him of all people? She really didn't think this through. If she had she would have realized how terrible an idea this is.

But she did realize how terrible an idea this was, but she did it anyways.

There's silence. The honking of cars can be heard echoing quietly from the streets of this city. And still she waits.

After a long moment, she hangs her head in defeat. Karen doesn't know what she expected. Did she really expect that he'd be here, when he could be out killing gang members and rescuing those in trouble?

She stifles a sob. She presses the palms of her thin hands into her eyes. And she forces herself to think. Survivability goes down significantly after 24 hours, even more after 48 hours. The police aren't enough; they won't save her in time. Karen tries to think rationally. Her mind is muddled in fear, desperation, and a thousand other emotions she doesn't care to put a name to. There are other options; there have to be other options _. Think Karen, if only you could think._ But when she thinks, all she can think is that there are no other options. This was her last resort. She runs a frustrated hand through her hair.

"Ma'am?"

Her heart lurches in her chest. Karen lets her hands drop to her sides. She turns to look behind her.

Frank Castle stands, eyes slightly widened, at the corner of the house. He is staring at Karen. His taunt and well-muscled body is clad in his usual black leather, but now wears his skull vest too, Karen registers dully. Looking clean cut, his tan skin is free of blood and bruises, the adornment that Karen had come to expect. When he meets her eyes Karen is shocked once more at the sincerity and vulnerability there. She is sure that no other person has been so privileged as to see that soft edge in his gaze, the emotional susceptibility that he hides so well. The only person to see more than just the concrete immovability, to see past the unforgiving Punisher, is her.

As Karen is frozen by his deep chocolate- _damn puppy dog_ -eyes, Frank is just as shocked by her blue ones. Enraptured by her strong gaze, he breathes heavily. The red rimming of her eyes gives away too much, but the contrast only makes her eyes bluer: an impossible blue. A blue brighter than the brightest sky and more pigmented than the deepest sea. Her spun gold hair is in tangles (probably from her nervously combing it), but the curls are still soft and beautiful. Frank has the intense and inexplicable urge to pull her into his arms.

He doesn't do that.

"What are you doing here?" his voice is husky, more so than it should have been.

Karen, like awaking from a stupor, blinks and looks away. She clears her throat. "Umm. Sorry about dropping by, but..." she trails off. She closes her eyes and gives her head a shake, physically ordering her thoughts. When she meets his gaze again, her brow is set and her eyes are firm. "They have taken Sky."

Frank straightens, almost imperceptibly. "Who did?"

Karen shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. The police don't know. That's why I need you."

She didn't really mean to say those exact words, but they were out before she could think twice. A blush creeps up her face, but Frank doesn't notices. Or so she believes.

"What happened?" is his curt response.

Everything is so short with him, so formal. Karen, in the space of about twenty seconds retells of the black van that came out of nowhere, the men in ski masks, and how she shot one and hit right fender of the van.

Frank frowns, could that be concern written in the lines of his face? "You were there?"

Karen nods. Mistakenly she feeling the need to justify herself, "I tried to protect her, Frank, I really did-" she is surprised when those unwanted tears clog her eyes. A firm bubble rises in her throat, her chest constricts.

Frank has to look away, his nose scrunching in supressed pain but mostly anger. He hates to see her upset, she so rarely is. He's only ever seen her strong, capable, unafraid of the looming grim reaper that seems to follow and haunt their group of ragtag misfit vigilantes and the people who stop them from dying periodically. He does consider himself a part of Red's group of vigilantes, strangely enough. And he really does consider Karen a part of his group, even if the group only consists of the two of them.

Karen sighs, composing herself. "We need to find her. I think she was taken because she knew about you and your hideout." Karen takes a deep breath. "Because they haven't come for you yet means that she hasn't broken, but I don't know how much longer..." She can't bring herself to finish the thought, too afraid of the guilt riding in her gut.

Frank's nose twitches. The shotgun in his hand drops to the ground. He walks towards her, brushing by her close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his imposing presence. She gets the sudden and overwhelming impulse to press her hands into his chest and absorb his warmth. The thought is strange, but not entirely foreign. She looks like she's about to question him when he quickly throws open the door of his basement. Startled, Karen's heels click slowly on the rough concrete patio. "What is it?"

He didn't even throw on the lights before he is back, a duffle bag in one hand and with at least a couple more guns strapped to him, a side holster and a dual chest holster, both with handguns tucked safely away in their assigned seats- ready for the ride of a lifetime.

"Let's go." Again, only a sharp word, his deep voice rumbles.

For some reason, Karen thinks about what he said to her in the diner when they were hunting the Blacksmith. _Only those close enough to you can really hurt you._ She was beginning to think that maybe that was true.

"Wait, do you even know who took her?" She carefully picks her way across the grass, following in his big steps.

"No idea, but I'll know soon enough." He picks up his discarded shotgun and checks the barrel.

"Well I'm coming to help." She says, indignantly.

He laughs once. "Not in those shoes you're not"

Karen frowns at his back, but agrees. "Fine then, my apartment, get better shoes and pants while I'm at it, and then we go." She catches up with him, but purposely doesn't throw her eyes in his direction. The fence latches behind them, and the smell of burnt toast intensifies.

Finally, Frank looks at her again, from his higher vantage point it almost looks like he doesn't approve; the slant of his eyes shows a little more than he would like it too. "You'll just get in the way."

She stands straighter. "I can take care of myself, you know."

He smiles, genuinely now, "Oh I know."

She frowns. "Then why wouldn't I come?"

Frank looks down, pausing, before slowly lifting his eyes to meet hers. He runs his eyes over her face, but not like he's examining her, but like he's thinking about her, trying to figure her out. He has that way about him, being able to see through people right to their very soul. Some find it disconcerting but Karen knows that intimate stare and gravitates towards it, often without her conscious mind even being aware. His eyes are soft and sincere when he answers. "I don't want you in danger. These assholes aren't afraid of hurting women, and I can't have another person I care about getting hurt on my watch."

That confession makes Karen pause, momentarily speechless. Is she really one of the few people the Punisher has come to care about? Is Frank even capable of caring for someone or did that part of him die with his family?

Somehow the latter question isn't even properly formed in her mind before she dismisses it. She knows, by his unguarded gaze...she can tell without a glimmer of a doubt that he really means it. That makes her falter; that he can sense the connection between them too is scary to her. It makes it more real, more real than she was ever willing to admit to herself.

 _What is your fascination with Frank Castle?_

She looks down before meeting his eyes. "Okay, fine. Just this once, okay? And you have to bring Sky back to my apartment so I can look after her. No arguments there." On that, Karen wouldn't budge. Not that she had ever imagined that she would so easily budge before but...

He smiles at her, almost like he's trying not to laugh. "Yes Ma'am."

He turns and takes a few steps into the shade of a tree. She waits for him, but she doesn't have to wait long. Moments later she hears the engine of a motorbike start. She is momentarily blinded by the brightness of the headlights before Frank eases the bike out from its hiding space. Slowly he makes his way to pavement, careful not to startle her. Then, reluctantly tossing his eyes over his shoulder once, he tears out onto the street and flies down the pavement like a man on a mission. His duffle bag is strapped to the back of the bike: he is going on a warpath. She watches him go, only a handful of seconds had passed and she is already too aware of his absence. She must look ridiculous (if anyone could see her) standing on the lawn of Frank Castle's hideaway, staring longingly after the Punisher.

She isn't religious- she doesn't really know how to pray, but she finds herself addressing some higher being, sending out some quiet plea to a power she doesn't even fully believe in. She sends a silent prayer to her parents' god, the only one she can call to for help now.

 _Let him find her in time._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Sky sits; the duct tape binding her hands to the splintering wooden chair is irritating her skin. Her head hangs, on the edge of oblivion, and blood trickles from her broken face. They had progressed from just punching her to caning her to now threatening her with a pair of pliers.

"You don't think we won't kill you, little girl?" one of the three men in the room snarls. He has a heavy Russian accent and is one of the main two that is actually engaged in her torture. The third sits, hand to his wounded shoulder where Karen hit him, moaning occasionally. They patched him up a little but it's clear that neither of the two were especially equipped to do any kind of medical intervention. However, Sky found that they were especially gifted when it came to brute force torture.

"Tell us, and we'll stop. Don't tell us and we'll get more...creative," the other guy speaks, his accent is distinctly American, possibly from Boston? Sky keeps her head low. Even if she wanted to tell them she thinks her lips are too bruised and her mouth too full of blood to be able to make a coherent sound. Her entire body hurts, but really if she focuses it's her face that's hinting (or screaming) the sharpest pain.

The worst is the taunting, the moment before the punch lands or the whistle of the rod cutting through the air before it hits her, that's where she feels that surge of adrenaline to protect herself, where her hands try to throw themselves up to protect her face before they pull at the restraints. That moment is the worse because that's when she feels all the fear a person is capable of feeling. To be so helpless, so alone- it's terrifying.

"No? No response?" the Boston guy mocks.

He attacks her, the reddened metal rod in hand, and hits her in the stomach three consecutive times before Sky starts choking on blood and tears pour anew from her eyes. "Come on girl, we could do this all day..."

"What are you doing?!" comes a new male voice from behind. Sky is struggling for breath, blood probably in her lungs. The room tilts wildly. Maybe the asshole ruptured something important and she's about to bleed out tied to a chair.

What little she can do to stay conscious she does, focusing on the new voice.

"We were just doing what you said tryin'a get information out of her," there's a pause, "Mr. Rawlins."

 _Who the hell is this Mr. Rawlins person?_ Sky vaguely thinks...even though she can barely stay awake.

"Dammit you stupid mobsters, I didn't want you to _kill_ her!" He yells.

They talk some more. "What has she said" and "We can't let her die, then we're really fucked" are heard, but Sky can't care past the consuming pain she's in. Her stomach is in agony and she can barely breathe, and she's starting to panic.

" _Fine_ ," Mr. Rawlins says, obviously fed up, "You still have that thing from Dr. Burstein? Yeah let's put her in it and see if that helps."

Sky's eyes droop closed as suddenly rough hands cut away her tape and hoist her up. She screams in pain, blood gurgling and making her gag. She doesn't open her eyes but instead whimpers feebly as she is carried. She indulges in the sad noise, needing to express her suffering.

She is startled awake when she is laid on a cold, metal plate. The morbid thought of her being laid out on a coroners table comes immediately to her mind. On her back she could easily pass out with nothing stopping her. The voices sound far away and fuzzy as everything turns to dots. She blinks slowly. She hears a suctioning sound, making her eyes focus. Instantly panic is fresh in her breast.

She's in Snow White's class coffin.

Blood bubbles at the corners of her mouth as she cries, turning to try and find one of the men who has her hostage. She lifts a hand and feels against the cold, hard glass of her capsule, leaving a smudge of a bloody handprint behind. It's her very own horror movie- and she's the sacrificed virgin.

She scans the outside, her adrenaline pulsing, focusing her into a singular area of concentration. It's a grey medical room with little in it besides painted cinderblocks, two doors and overhead exposed bulbs. There's a man in a suit, most likely Mr. Rawlins, who stands with a man still wearing a ski mask. There's an examination table to their left and a door to their right and behind them. She's in a tomb pushed up against the other wall. It couldn't be more than a few feet by twenty feet deep.

A crushing against her chest is felt as claustrophobic panic sets in. She'd never been much afraid of small spaces, but that was before she was trapped, broken and helpless in this thing.

The man in the suit turns to a switchboard covered in abbreviations in white lettering above sinister buttons, switches and lights. He presses a button on the top corner and suddenly noise floods her chamber. There's vibrating as fans pick up and the sound of hydraulics kicks in. Over the deafening din she can barely hear his next words. "I think this is how it works."

Suddenly, a trickle of fluid tickles her fingers. She starts to panic to futility, turning wildly and scratching against the unforgiving glass. Is this the torture they were talking about? Afraid of the motives she tries to move but the agony in her stomach and head clouds her vision with blackness. A dry mouth and wet face; she cries against the onslaught of fluid.

It fills quickly; she tries to fight against the drowning sea as the chemical concoction fills her nostrils. She bucks trying to get it out, but in trying to take in air she takes in more chemicals.

 _I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die._

The pain is new thresholds as she slowly slips away.

Her body tries to expel the fluid but she's contained. There's nowhere to go.

Darkness closes in and in that moment of fear she feels a bizarre clarity. It's sadness at life, and bitterness towards death. She wasn't supposed to die, she doesn't _want_ to die.

A smashing brings her back from the edge of oblivion and she feels her body tumbling out with the yellow fluid, over broken glass and onto hard concrete. The impact jolts some liquid out of her mouth and she begins to frantically try for air.

She vomits chemicals for a moment as a hand puts gentle pressure on her back.

She doesn't open her eyes but instead focuses on pulling in slow and ridiculously painful breaths. It just makes her gag and cough more for a while until she rubs her clogged nose with her hand and snorts out the rest of it.

Cautiously breathing she tries swallowing. The flavour is that of liquid painkillers: revolting.

"Here, have some water to rinse it out with," comes a gruff voice.

It's Frank Castle who hands her a water bottle, water that she swishes around and spits on the floor, twice, before opening her aching eyes to the bright new world.

Frank Castle looks like he's ready to murder a den of thieves he's so livid. His nose even twitches as his grave eyes look at Sky for any signs of damage. He wears his Punisher black bulletproof vest and jacket. She sees the dead body of the guy wearing the ski mask, his head a puddle off blood and ground beef. Mr. Rawlins is nowhere to be seen.

Her eyes sink shut, exhausted.

"Are you hurt?" He asks hurriedly.

She nods, slowly.

"Where?" He asks again.

She points vaguely at her stomach. After a moment she gets up her courage to try to speak. "Intern-" she coughs and drinks some of the water. Slowly the burning resides until she is able to try again. "Internal...bleeding..."

"In your stomach?" His voice is worried.

She nods gratefully.

"Face...hurts..." she tries.

He looks at her closely. He gently tests her cheek and she's surprised by how the pain is replaced by just tenderness. Her expression asks the question that her voice can't just yet.

"You look fine, kid." He is obviously just as confused as she is. "And the glass didn't shred your skin, which doesn't make sense."

She droops slightly.

"Alright, time to take you home. Karen's probably really worried."

She is lifted gently, the Punisher being her guardian angel delivering her from perdition.

Sky vaguely senses him carrying her out as she falls into a deep sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Karen was never very good at listening to orders.

In a moment of suspended thought she shook her head and hurriedly followed after Frank. She hailed a taxi after flipping off the heroin addicts at the corner of the street and told him to follow the speck that was Frank Castle just as he crested over the horizon.

Needless to say she lost him more than once, but the nice taxi driver (who was doing his masters as he mentioned constantly) turned random corners for her until she heard the telltale shotgun blasts in the distance.

The poor taxi driver. He wanted to drive in any direction away from that sound, which was reasonable enough, but Karen made him go a few blocks further. She finally bailed, paying him a tip of nearly forty dollars, and ran in her heels towards the sound.

It was in an abandoned warehouse where she found the carnage of Frank's anger and his especially finessed interrogation techniques. He was already gone, onto some unknown second location where, presumably, Sky was being held.

Karen delicately steps around some down machinery and chains that fell from their hook, littering the floor with a sinister sense of abandonment. She turns towards where moaning is coming from and a small yellow light shines like a beacon. It looks to be a breakroom with its door slightly ajar letting the sounds and light of the beyond room spill into the fractured night.

She almost slips on wet concrete and to her horror realizes that its blood that she nearly fell on. Her hand flies to her mouth and she forces her eyes closed. She breathes for a moment, only to find that the tang of blood is not so easily blocked out. But, of course, she already knew that.

The smeared blood leads to the door and she carefully edges at it, unaware of what to expect besides carnage. She clutches her pepper spray to her chest and feels the meager pickings of her weapon. But it's not like she wants to grab her .380 and have to deal with those consequences. So instead she kicks the door open with her foot and stands, ready to spray anyone, only to find what seems like a slaughter.

 _Is anyone even alive?_

Karen can't think much past that thought except that this must have been some kind of hideout for a criminal syndicate that is...no longer. There are bodies, maybe eight, strewn around the room like a child's toys. Except that only a child throwing a tantrum could ever be so thorough in the destruction of their toys. Oh, and also, toys don't bleed.

The blood peppers the wall and is in long smears across the floor and walls. Not to mention that one guy sits slightly propped up in a pool of blood. He's dead, but he lived long enough to write the word "Help" in his own blood. There's another that has his life splattered on a wall and desk, and it still slowly trails its way down the wall in a morbid mosaic. Karen looks down to see the man who's path of blood lead her here down on his face right in front of a couple guys who now lie piled on top of each other.

She startles when he moans.

Dropping down beside him she turns him over, only a little squeamish at the blood. She is careful not to get any on her hands. Who knows if he has AIDS or Hepatitis C?

He lands heavily on his back and cringes, a rush of air leaving his lungs. His curly hair is plastered to his head with blood and his one eye appears to be swollen shut. His freckles are almost as numerous as the blood spots. Karen takes a step back unconsciously and surveys his bleak condition. Even though his hand in clamped on his stomach that appears to be gushing blood from a gunshot, Frank left him alive, probably for informational purposes.

"Hey, hey!" she calls as she pokes him with her stiletto.

He stirs a little but doesn't respond.

"Where did you send him? Where is Frank going?"

They guy's head lolls a bit and he opens one good eye to drink Karen in. He obviously wasn't expecting a pretty blonde to be the one to welcome him into hell.

"What?" he mumbles. He's going to die from blood loss soon and so his head is fuzzier than it should be. Karen doesn't have time for this. She crouches down next to him on the wet concrete. She looks at him very intensely but not unkindly.

"The Punisher, the man who only wears black leather and has the marine haircut and is a ruthless killing machine? Remember him? Well he's the one who came and did this to you. You're still alive which means you told him what he wanted to know. So why don't you just tell me what you told him and I will get you some help so you don't die, what do you think about that?" Her voice is diplomatic but also demanding. She fully intends for him to help her.

He blinks slowly and groans before turning his head, with all the effort he could muster, towards Karen. "Punish..."

"Yes, yes him. The Punisher. Frank. Please tell me where you sent him."

"Rawlins, west," he shudders a little and Karen gets out her phone.

"I will call an ambulance as soon as you tell me an address." She stares at him coldly. Finally the guy comes to his senses.

"Abandoned children's hospital...taken over..." His eyes cloud over and the crow's feet at their corners crinkle as if he was looking far away. Karen finally dials for the ambulance, anonymously leaves his location, and then starts walking towards the door.

"Wait!" The guy calls out. Karen turns slowly, pushing her shimmery but now overly tangled hair back from her face. He pants, a hand slightly extended as the other pushes the blood seeping from his beer belly away from the open wound. He won't last much longer, and he knows it.

Karen takes a tentative step back and then kneels beside him. He looks surprisingly afraid, even though he wasn't a second ago. The only light in the room is the small overturned lamp on the desk and it keeps him mostly in shadow. However, the last thing he sees is a beautiful woman with spun gold hair and piercing blue eyes cast in a stoplight that surrounds her like a halo.

"God, forgive me," is all he says as, shuddering, he spurts blood and life out of his body and sags back, deflated.

Karen squeezes her eyes shuts and a breath hitches in her throat.

 _He was obviously a bad guy. Frank doesn't kill innocents. Save your pity._

But a tear fell nonetheless. And her throat was still clogged, and her head still hurt.

She sometimes forgets how not romantic death is. Frank's murder still sometimes makes her cover her eyes and weep. It's sometimes too easy to pass it off as just doing the right thing, but when it's this violent and grotesque...it reminds her too much of what has come before.

Well, that's one thing she has in common with the Punisher.

Although it doesn't weigh on his conscience like it does hers.

She blinks quickly and sucks on her dry lip. Without looking at the bodies she gets up and, with her heals clicking against the now sticky concrete, she hurries out towards the old children's hospital.

She, like anyone in New York City, has heard about the old Children's Psychiatric Hospital with creepy toys and locked doors. She never felt any overwhelming urge to go and witness the horror left behind from decades of doctors and their sick ideas for treatment of their young patients. More like their young victims. Fitting as it is that Sky was taken and held in this God-forsaken place.

The ivy grows up the walls as she walks up the broken pavement, her gun in her hands. Pointed at the ground her gun is quietly ready so that, in a heartbeat, she can tenderize the face of these sons-of-bitches that took Sky. The red brick is crumbling around the edges and the dense foliage of overgrown trees and bushes could hide any number of devastating things. Karen instead focuses on the sound of the running engine of the taxi she told to wait around the corner for her.

Her eyes lift to the façade framed by the skeletal trees still bare from the cold weather. Every sense tells her that the darkened windows hold nothing but danger and her stomach rebels against her as she lifts one bare hand to the door. It is unlatched and moves aside slowly revealing little but darkness beyond. She tries not to think of the horror movies she watched religiously as a teen as, after swallowing hard, she steps past the threshold.

In a world of vigilante justice and blood feuds between those families more ancient and powerful than modern revisionism, Karen isn't totally willing to rule out the idea of...supernatural phenomenon. The echoing of her steps and her own breathing is enough to make her feet and hands cold and sweaty, and leave her ears hearing things that aren't really there. Or, what she hopes isn't really there. Karen paces further down a hallway and enters into a more lit forked path. Large and round windows set into the roof cast her in dusk blue light. If anything being able to see is even eerier. Old toys, once colourful in their cheery yellows and smiling faces now lay broken and grey. The green wallpaper is peeling in large sheets and mysterious stains darken the paint beyond.

She is going to die. No idea how yet, but in this forsaken place she feels wrong just being here.

Karen peers down her three options for corridors. All are shrouded in darkness and instinctual and resounding fear. Her only option that is currently keeping her from vomiting from fear is to keep moving. The faster she finds Frank and Sky the faster she can leave. Although the haunting nature of the place seems to want to keep her, it's beginning to feel claustrophobic like the walls have cold hands that trace the back of her neck.

She shudders and steps around a broken doll with only half a face and heads straight ahead. When she comes upon open cell doors with highlighter pink spray paint designating them as various functions she knows the gang who took Sky has this as their main base. She dares a look into the first one. A bed, so small, with leather straps and cuffs bolted to the side. She steps away in horror and nearly screams when her back comes in contact with warmth.

"What are you doing poking around?" a thick Boston accent purrs.

She does scream besides herself and turns her gun onto him. He knocks it away as she get a shot off only missing his right ear by an inch. He pulls her tight to him but she stomps down on his foot with her heel. He hisses in pain but doesn't let go. She wrestles an arm free and starts hitting his other arm to get herself free. He takes a handful of her hair and pulls down, her body going with it.

Karen is fighting a nightmarish fight, in the dirty halls of a children's asylum. It only gets worse when he picks up her gun with his free hand and points it at her head.

The terror must be evident in her eyes because he just laughs and let's go of her hair. "What a pretty thing. You know, you seem familiar. Have I fucked you over before?"

Karen can barely stop the chattering of her teeth. She stares at the bare face of a man with years of killing under his belt. He looks surprisingly human for such a monster. Only a scar above his eyebrow and a teardrop tattoo show him to be the creature he is. His hooded eyes gaze at her with lustful interest and it's all she can do to straighten her back and meet him at eyelevel.

"Let's go see, how the boss wants to deal with you. A pretty creature like you with a fancy gun like this? Interesting prize horse we got here."

He indicates to go back the way she came and she turns slowly, her hands raised in an apologetic surrender. She allows that deep fear to show in her shaky movements and heavy breathing, all the while she strategizes and plans. She steps carefully and avoids anything too creepy lying on the floor.

"Will you hurry up? We don't have-" Two consecutive shots go off, big booming shotgun blasts. Karen ducks instinctively her hands covering her head. The Boston Asshole is quick to grab her shoulder, in case she plans on using this to her advantage. His rough hands stick to her soft blouse as he pinches her in his crushing grasp.

"What the fuck was that?!" He yells, quite pointlessly.

Karen surveys the surroundings, hoping something has changed to alleviate her impending torture. He pushes her up against the wall and holds her there with one hand while he looks around frantically, her gun swinging wildly. It's almost as if he could sense it.

Her back is crushing the flaking wallpaper and she focuses on that itchiness to keep her anxiety at bay. She weighs her options: either attack him now when the gun isn't pointed at her head, or wait and see the cause of the commotion. The worry is that since he's becoming more erratic he may shoot Karen in a spur. She decides it's not worth the heavy risk and instead scans the hallway.

They stand frozen in time, the chill of the child's asylum and streaked dawning light making them both seem surreal in their not decayed state of life.

A single red ball rolls down the hallway in front of them picking up dust as it slowly rolls to a stop a few feet from them. Karen's breath catches.

The Boston Asshole squint and frantically calls out, "Who's there?!" His voice quivers in a revealing fashion and the fear is palpable.

A heartbeat passes. Then another. Then...

A booming blast shatters the silence, so deafening that it makes Karen's ears ring. The guy sways a little before crumpling like the broken toys around him. Karen shakes as her gun falls harmlessly away from his now dead fingers. Her hand flies to her mouth and she looks up just in time to see him.

He emerges from the darkness, Sky over his left shoulder, and a handgun in his right hand. He looks like some dark avenging angel, his face unreadable but severe and yet unmistakable in its handsomeness. He holsters his gun and then gently lifts Sky and carries her in both his arms, her small body plastered with blood and some sticky substance.

She meets his gaze and their relief at seeing each other is all too obvious. She finally allows her lip to quiver, but she quickly looks away before anything more emotional could be seen. She picks up her gun and places it in her purse. Now that he's here there's hardly a need for it.

"I told you to stay away," his deep voice is surprisingly soft.

She laughs in an absolutely unfunny way. "Well, you know I'm not very good at following directions."

He blinks once then lowers his head in a smile. When he raises it the smile remains and he just shakes his head, looking out towards the front doors. She draws closer to him without even realizing it, just so enjoying that rare smile.

When he looks back at her, mirror looks of surprise pass between them that turn suddenly heavy with serious emotion. His dark eyes glimmer and she is surprised at the rawness of it. Biting her lip she looks away first. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear she looks out towards the front doors.

"Please let's leave this awful, creepy place."

He nods, and they walk towards the open doors. He lets her go first and when she looks back he is framed in the doorway. How could someone so outwardly hard be carrying a child so gently? The world around him is unforgiving, and yet here he is, hardened by it but not destroyed by it. He looks too much like a hero in that moment that her heart flips in her chest.

He leaves the door open, the carnage and ghosts left behind look over their shoulders as they descend the cracked pavement to whatever comes next.

 **Author's note: Hello everyone! Thank you for reading my latest chapter and my story. Every read, follow, favourite etc. is wonderful and I appreciate them all! I hope you like where this story is going and I hope you continue with me till the end. If you have suggestions or comments I always love to hear them. Have a wonderful day!**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The last time Frank Castle was in her apartment he was a fugitive with his hands above his head. It's important to note that Karen was also pointing a gun at him.

Now, fast forward: different apartment, different scenario. He carefully shuts the door to her bedroom leaving Sky to rest in silence. He's gentle and careful not to let the door crash. Sky still hasn't woken up from her ordeal and Karen is starting to worry. Frank still hasn't told her anything and she's starting to pick nervously at everything. When was the last time she ate? Slept?

She pulls her hair back into a low bun just to avoid having to deal with it. When Frank enters her small, white tiled and dark kitchen she is eating peanut butter on crackers. The kitchen itself is so painfully generic in its grimy white cupboards and greasy oven that the only thing that makes it look like it's lived in are the bananas on the countertop and Karen Page, in all her disheveled and yet beautiful glory. Suddenly awkward, mostly because she was eating nervously, she looks at him. "Do you want anything to eat?"

He just shakes his head and sits at her small kitchen table from the 70s. "No thank you Ma'am."

Getting a glass of water she sits down across from him, the painted wood hard on her back. "Why do you always call me Ma'am?"

Looking at him over the brim of her glass she watches his response. In return he studies her like she asked the most absurd question ever. "Ma'am is just respectful. It's what we say in the Corps."

She can't help but smile, the dim light making it look especially bright. "I think we're past the formal titles."

Only after the words exit her mouth does she realize how weighted that sentence was. Frank picks up on it, running a hand through his short hair. He sits back in his chair. "Not since you said you didn't want anything to do with me."

And there it was.

Karen puts down her glass, too afraid to meet his exposed gaze. She feels suddenly naked, although she has nothing to apologize for. Yet, there is no one that can look at her and see straight to her core...and not judge her. She feels like a monster wearing the skin of a cheerleader. When he looks at her, it's not that he doesn't see the monster; he just cares about her in spite of it. Maybe even because of it, because who else would understand the same darkness that lives beneath his own beating heart?

"That was a different time." Indeed it seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. She picks at the worn tablecloth with daisies embroidered around the edges.

He stares out the window to the small courtyard beneath her apartment. His strong jaw works as his sharp eyes scan the world beyond. "Maybe." He says. Finally, after a moment of silence, he looks back at her, "I thought I'd never see you again."

She fights the heat that creeps up her neck. "I didn't expect to end up here, that's for sure." She laughs softly.

His examining gaze is almost unbearable before he speaks again. "You and that lawyer ever get together?"

His voice is casual and deep but Karen knows what he's really thinking about. Her eyebrow arches. She could play this one of a few ways, but it must have been the lack of sleep that made her blurt out the first thing that came to mind. "I remember that night, you know? When you insisted on taking me to that diner as bait and then gave me a lengthy speech. Then you beat the guy to death and continued on reaping justice. It was pretty unforgettable." The silence is heavy for a moment. "And no, I don't really see him as much anymore." Not after he pulled that damned mask out of that damned bag. Karen had tried to reconcile so much, but had found too much comfort in her job at the Bulletin to go back to that.

The light of the orange streetlights below steeps into the room, cut into ribbons by the blinds, and plays tricks with Frank's face. It makes his shoulders look bigger, his eyes darker. Karen admires him, at how handsome he is, especially now that the swelling is down and the bruises are gone. The eyes are deep without their usual ornaments of bruising in shades between black, yellow and green. Those cheekbones and sharp jaw, the heavy brows and the lips that rarely curve a smile, but when they do they can really take your breath away.

She can't help but stare a little too long.

"I burned it to the ground," he says suddenly, "After you left."

Karen runs a hand down her face and pushes a fist into her lips to keep from saying anything too rash. Although he doesn't say it, she knows what he is talking about. His family's home, the one Karen broke into to find a photo of his family. The photo she then tortured him with on their first meeting. "I'm sorry."

"I needed to move on," his voice is tight and monotone.

"I hope you found peace," she says, emotion thick in the air.

Their eyes meet across the table. They both know there is no peace for people like them.

He takes a deep breath, fortifying himself. "You brought me back to the light. I had almost lost my mind, think I did for a little while," he shakes his head and looks down, "Then you showed me that picture, and you knew. You knew you were poking the bear in the ass but you didn't care." He meets her gaze again. "Fearless."

There was no denying that there was something else in the room besides just the two of them. What was left unsaid almost spoke louder than what was said. Like a third person looming over them, the humidity of the evening became unbearable. Frank still wore his leather jacket but he took off his punisher vest and so was only Frank in that moment, not the Punisher.

Karen almost can't believe that they are the same person; no matter how she's seen him beat a man to death or clear a rooftop from a hundred yards away. He's too gentle to be the hardened killer, too caring and too deeply emotional. Dammit, he basically adopted a young teen because she was in trouble.

Although Karen also kind of adopted Sky, she took her in when Sky needed it. She and Frank Castle were never really that different, despite what Karen had come to believe.

She stands abruptly and goes to the sink. She runs the cold water for a moment, her pinky finger testing the water before she fills her glass again and drinks. After that she doesn't turn around, even when she hears the scrap of his chair on the linoleum. "Would you like coffee? Or do you want to go, because I can take care of Sky until the morning-"

When she turns around he is only a foot away. He moved so quickly, so quietly. This must be the closest they've ever been to each other without some kind of life-threatening thing forcing them together. She looks up into his eyes and carefully puts the glass down.

 _We're at war and all I can think of is him._

Warmth radiates off of him. He seems so unassuming, which is hilarious considering how much taller and bigger his is, not to mention his status as the Punisher. However, Karen realizes how foolish it was to ever worry that he would hurt her.

 _You were never in danger, you were safe._

His own words echo through her mind as he gazes at her.

"If I wasn't so afraid of offending you, I'd kiss you right now." His voice is as raw and rough as his gaze.

His words make her heart beat frantically. She bites her lip. You could cut the desire in the room with a butter knife. "I thought you'd never ask."

She grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and brings him down to her anxious lips. When they meet, its months of desire and restraint, and fever like nothing Karen had ever felt.

His lips are surprisingly soft as they meet Karen's. He bends down to compensate for the height difference, enveloping her. She barely registers that he tastes like gunpowder and burnt sugar.

She feels his strong arms wrap around her waist and pull her close as he tilts his head and kisses her back, fever taking him too. It's like nothing ever before, dangerous and sweet, gentle but passionate.

His lips find hers again as he lifts her onto the counter and she wraps her hands around the back of his neck pulling her to him, trying to get closer, always closer, until they merge into a singular person. If it was possible she would have devoured him then and there, and happily have died in the ecstasy.

Hooking her legs around him, she pulls him ever closer, her skirt hiking up. He gently unleashes her hair as it tumbles down her back and he plays with those sensitive hairs at the back of her neck. She comes up for air and finds herself breathing heavily as he plants soft kisses down her neck. She runs her hands through his hair as she kisses her way down to his lips.

The fever was all consuming, she thought she may burn alive as his big hands trail her body, making her back arch in pleasure. She runs her hands over him, letting all those stolen thoughts and heavy looks devour her. The time he saved her, shielding her with his own body. She says all this with her touch as her soft hands trace his jaw and touch the rough stubble of his cheeks.

When he kisses her; he knows it is more than just that fire and desire. She feels it too, that deeper meaning as he presses his lips to hers again, and again, making her toes curl. Their lips part and the kiss deepens until there is nothing but the smell of him and the taste of him surrounding her.

She moans softly as he kisses her neck, and his hands drift lower down her back. He runs his fingers through her hair, soft as silk, and finds her lips again. It's urgent and passionate, like he had only just come awake with life and had been lost so long before it. To him, she tastes like flowers and a little like peanuts, only making him burn like fire.

She drinks him in like a dying woman. Nothing else exists, only the burning in her veins and him.

In the moment of fever she almost doesn't hear it, and he nearly misses it himself.

Panting she pulls away, "Frank," but his name on her lips just pulls them back into the fire, how lusty and breathless she sounds, Frank could barely contain himself. She has to break away and hold his face, their eyes meeting for him to finally hear it too.

He looks at the door and quickly drops Karen behind him. He soon realizes his vest is off but there isn't time to put it back on. So, he quickly grabs his shotgun, and checks that it's loaded.

Just in time.

The door is kicked down a second later and guys in ski masks enter her apartment, the still space suddenly erupting in noise. Frank fires off two shots in quick succession, dropping two. Karen has a moment of clarity and bolts for the kitchen table. She has seconds to get to the kitchen chair where her purse and gun await. She turns just in time to get off a shot into the third guy and drop him as Frank reloads.

No one else comes through the door, though.

Immediately Karen looks around at the carnage, fear and a need for action making her anxious (not the least of which is fueled by her adrenaline and the burning feeling still left behind where Frank kissed her). In a high voice she stutters, "They know you're here, we need to get you out." The gun shots still ring in her ears.

Karen's bedroom door opens and out comes a drowsy Sky in some of Karen's borrowed clothes. After Karen had cleaned some of the blood off of her she put her in an old grey t-shirt and sleep-pants with bright yellow hearts on them...which now look completely out of place next to the massacre in her living room. She surveys the dead bodies slowly, and then looks up at Karen and Frank. Both of them are disheveled but Karen especially so, with her blouse open, skirt hiked up and hair askew. Finally meeting their eyes, a frown creases her brow. "What did I miss?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"You know I don't ask a lot of questions," Claire says cautiously, "But this girl, Sky? She's in perfect health."

Karen picks away at her fingernails nervously without breaking eye contact. It's the day after the whole fiasco and they're mostly concerned about A) Sky's health, and B) the men who tried to murder Frank and her like three hours before. Claire's apartment was, maybe not obviously, their first stop.

"But that can't be, she was tortured, had internal bleeding, and was put into this insane death machine and you're telling me she's _okay_?" Karen's nerves are like a frayed knot. She stands, as she can't bear to sit, in Claire's apartment. The sun is barely poking over the horizon, and so threads thin light into the small and eclectic apartment. It is notable how all surfaces seemed to be covered in something: be it a crocheted pink and mustard coloured dolly or small knickknacks made of blown glass or, now, a med kit open to reveal its contents of clean bandages and peroxide wipes. Frank is waiting outside since they agreed that Sky should be examined before The Punisher introduces himself. Who knows what Claire would do? Karen is not currently in the mood to deal with any drama.

Sky puts her shirt back on after Claire examined where, _apparently_ , Sky had felt her ribs break. She's still wearing mostly Karen's clothes with the exception of her bra, and she looks kind of strange in the pastel pink sweater and ill-fitting pencil skirt. Karen is so used to the black on black and military green with embroidered skulls that the pink makes her look like a different person. A person who's weirdly uncomfortable in anything in the least bit feminine. She keeps pulling at the hem of the skirt like it's not long enough for her comfort.

"That's not possible. I had blood coming out of my mouth, I nearly lost consciousness and I _promise_ he nearly killed me." Sky says with no small amount of snark.

Claire lifts an immaculate eyebrow. To be fair she did let them in even though it was only seven o'clock in the morning and it was still dark out. It's always dark out. "I could have kicked you to the curb," she says as rebuttal to Sky's obvious rude tone.

She lifts her hands as if in her defense, and shrugs. "Hey, it's not that I don't believe you, it's just that there are no signs of what you're saying happened to you. There isn't even bruising."

Sky shakes her head and sits down on a crocheted ivory blanket, frowns, and moves it to lie over her lap. "There has to be an explanation." Her dark hands that are scar free knot in her lap. Her dark straight brows sit low on her brow as a frown mars her young face. Karen can't help but grab a fistful of hair and sit down next to Sky on the couch, nearly shoulder to shoulder.

"We'll figure this out," she says to Sky as reassuringly as she can manage, while shooting Claire a look. Claire returns it with equal confusion.

"Wait," Claire's eyes widen suddenly. "No, it couldn't be..."

"What?" Sky asks, impatient. She nervously braids her black hair into a side braid, running her short fingers through the hair that still has a residue from her endeavors in the previous hours.

"I know a guy," she points at her and worries at her lip. "He's like you, if you're what I think you are."

She frowns theatrically. "What like human? I'm fairly confident I'm not an alien."

Claire waves her hand. "No, not like that. I think the same procedure happened to him." She pauses for a moment. "Can you cut yourself?"

Karen bolts to her feet, her face inches away from Claire's. "What the hell kind of question is that?" Karen's anger went from zero to a hundred in a second, but Sky just sits there wide-eyed.

"I was just asking-" Claire protests.

"That was way out of line-" Karen's voice wavers with emotion. Her blue eyes are electric.

"I wasn't encouraging her to _try-_ " Claire dons a mask of quiet condescension.

Karen's nose wrinkles. "What was that supposed to mean?!"

Claire looks as if she's about an inch from storming out of the room. "You know what? Fine, find a solution to your own damn problems."

"Guys stop," Sky pipes up, and the two other women look at her, emotion still written on their beautiful faces. Sky glances at Karen before she makes unflinching eye contact with Claire. "When...I was rescued, I rolled over broken glass, but none of it cut me. Nothing happened." She stares at Claire.

Claire stares back, slightly horrified.

"What does that mean?" Karen says, more calm than she was a second ago.

Sky's dark brown eyes shift to the kitchen. Before anyone can realize what she's doing she leaps from the chair, runs into the kitchen as her socked feet slide on the smooth tile, grabs a paring knife from the block in the fluorescence of the kitchen. She presses the sharp edge into her skin as Karen screams for her to stop. The door bangs open.

Nothing happens.

Sky looks at her arm where the knife was pressed in amazement.

"The hell's going on?" Franks voice rips over the momentary silence. Claire jumps and swings around.

Her eyes nearly pop out of her head as she takes in who's now beside her in her apartment.

"What the ever-loving fuck?!" She cries, taking a step back without breaking eye contact.

Karen rushes in, as Frank puts up his hands, obviously a little annoyed by the women who keep freaking out at the sight of him showing up randomly in their apartment. He does seem to be making a habit of it.

"Claire, don't worry, he's with us." She says holding her hand out between them, her back to Frank.

"He's with you?! That's the fucking _Punisher_ , like as in public enemy number one!"

"Now you're just going to hurt my feelings." Frank says, unable to stop himself.

Karen looks over her shoulder at him with a look that could melt flesh. "Not helping, Frank."

"Frank?! Oh you've got to be kidding me." Claire puts her head in her hands. "Why do these people keep ending up on my couch?" She asks to no one in particular.

Sky chooses that moment to walk between them, a weird joy lighting her face. She is insistent to keep the attention on her. "I can't believe it guys." She looks from Karen, to Claire and then to Frank, the amazement never ceasing. Without breaking eye contact she takes the tip of the knife and plunges it into her forearm.

Karen gags, almost vomiting.

Claire just has her arms crossed over her grey tank top that are mismatched from her pink sleep pants, a look of disbelief writ on her face.

Frank looks stoic, but in his eyes he is already worried, already calculating risk and what this will do to them. He's not even disturbed by Sky trying to plunge a knife through her forearm.

Sky looks up, the tip bending the skin around it but not breaking it, even though she brought it down with enough force for it to punch out of the other side of her arm. She grins, the biggest smile Karen's ever seen. A grin so big it stretches her cheeks; it's just a huge fucking smile.

It freaks Karen out.

"I'm invincible!"

Claire shakes her head, her loose hair tumbling around her shoulders. She has momentarily forgotten the Punisher is in her living room, long enough to think how to fix this whole cluster-fuck. "There may be a way to reverse it-"

"Reverse it?" Sky says in complete disbelief. "Why would I want to do that?"

Before Claire can defend her statement, Karen jumps in. "Sky, it may be for the best."

"How do you know what's best for me?" Her fresh face scrunches up and she looks at Frank who has remained largely quiet. "Why is this of all things the first thing we're talking about instead of how cool it is that I'm a fucking superhero."

"Because, Sky," Karen says with a patience she doesn't feel, "This could be enormously dangerous for you. If those guys who tried to kill us last night-"

"Someone tried to kill you?!" Claire's eyes nearly pop out of her head, again. Then fear enters them. She has seen too much to know how _not_ safe it is when someone with money and a vendetta decides to come after you: even if you are with the very scary Punisher.

"-find out that you're some kind of...enhanced individual, they could come after you." Karen finishes.

"Oh like they already have?" She crosses her arms in front of her chest, glaring at them. The remains of black eyeliner make her look like a pouty teen, and Karen has to remind herself that, indeed, despite everything that has happened, Sky is still a child.

Even more reason to convince her to at least hear her out. "They may be out to kill you this time! Don't you get how this thing puts a target on your back?" Karen closes her eyes to keep back the flood of anger.

"So what? I'm _invincible_ now Karen. I can't believe we are even having this conversation." She just shakes her head.

Finally, Frank speaks up. "You want to go after them?"

She turns on him, anger flaring into her eyes. She looks even less menacing than usual in that outfit - the pink certainly isn't helping either, but that doesn't mean she isn't trying. "Of course I want to fuck their shit up. And then, after I'm done, I'm going to find my brother."

There is a heavy silence.

Claire stares at Frank warily. She doesn't know the history, not like Karen does.

Karen tries to capture Sky's gaze, but she just stares blankly out the partially shuttered window.

 _Someone has to break the silence,_ Karen thinks.

"Sky," she starts.

There's too much pity.

Karen doesn't realize her mistake.

Frank does.

"NO!" Frank yells, only a moment too late.

Sky sprints, her feet throwing her small body as fast as she'll go. She turns past the recliner and in a split second her tiny body throws itself against the glass.

The combination of her force and her newly impenetrable skin smashes the cheap and thin glass where, with a deafening shattering, she disappears.

Karen, Frank and Claire are at the window in a heartbeat. Frank gets there first and looks over the edge with no concern for his hands now being cut by the broken glass. There isn't even a fire escape, just a freefall for twenty stories.

Sky can barely be seen picking herself off of the sidewalk and stumbling away.

"Frank!" Karen cries as his bleeding hands paint trails of crimson down his forearms. When his eyes meet hers, she realizes what he just saw.

From his perspective he just saw another child die.

Throwing herself from a building.

Karen gently cups her hands around Frank's face. He looks ghostly, broken and terrified. She has never seen him so vulnerable, so emotional.

"Frank," she says, now more comforting.

Claire just stares at them. There are no words to describe the mass murderer with blood leaking from his hands being comforted by a beautiful reporter after a tiny teenager just threw herself from Claire's living room window and survived.

Shocked, she just stands there for a moment, completely immobilized.

"I have to go after her, I have to - I have to - I have to _help_ her-" Frank mumbles, his eyes far away.

"Not with those bleeding hands you aren't." Claire says with finality.

And that's how Claire was coerced into patching up _another_ _damn_ vigilante on her living room couch.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Sky had never killed anyone before.

Despite how many punches she has thrown in her teenage years, the occasional testicle kick and the rare slap, Sky had never actually done too much harm. Well, she broke that kid's nose who tried to rape her, but past that she rarely even drew blood.

How was she now going to murder in cold blood?

A question she largely ignored as she walks the streets that night.

She knows, deep down, that Karen and Frank are out looking for her. She could turn up at Frank's house or go to a police station. Let the adults, the _authorities_ , handle it.

As if.

It smells faintly like tangy blood, that's how you know you're getting close. This part of town is where the Dogs of Hell used to be set up. This neighbourhood is mostly smaller buildings and cheap housing for new immigrants and prostitutes alike.

 _My parents once lived in a place like this,_ she thinks sadly.

It has been so long since she had a family, or even someone to look out for her. The feeling was uncomfortable, even suffocating to her. That's why when Karen had been so sympathetic, so pitying, Sky couldn't take it. It was perfectly reasonable, in her mind at least, to throw herself out of a window.

It all happened so fast.

She crosses the street to avoid the orange glow of the streetlight. Usually a young and small girl like herself would want to stay in a well-lit and busy place at this time of night. Not tonight though, not since she became unstoppable.

Where is she even going? While it was still daylight she visited the children's hospital only to find it deserted. She left quickly, knowing that that's where Frank would think to look for her.

Guilt bubbles at her throat.

 _Well now I feel like shit._ She shakes her head to clear her thoughts.

She had politely asked some low down scumbag criminals if they knew the name Rawlins, but they didn't so she knocked them out and kept going. It became a repetitive motion: ask, answer, punch. This would be her fourth interrogation of the night, when she found her next target.

A scream slices through the night.

Immediately Sky's adrenaline kicks in. _Run,_ it says to her. Instead, fighting down the reaction to save herself, she tears off towards it.

She turns into the dark alleyway and sees a familiar scene. A woman in her mid-thirties with fake blonde hair is up against the wall as a hooded man presses a small pocketknife to her long throat. Her mascara and red lipstick are smeared and her two-piece white suit is dirty. _I wonder what someone like you is doing out here,_ Sky thinks.

She creeps up on the two.

"Give me your money," the guy says frantically. Blubbering and whimpering she gives him her matching white bag which he promptly grabs and throws to the ground. She whimpers louder.

"I've changed my mind. Got anything else to offer me, pretty lady?" Sky can practically smell his bad breath and see his heroin thin face, decorated with glassy eyes and a patchy beard. It reminds her all too much of her one close call in a similar alley and with a similar creep.

 _I mean, all these assholes are interchangeably awful in my mind._

She kicks in the back of his knee and he falls, not expecting the blow, the knife tumbling a safe distance away from the woman's throat. Sky doesn't stop there, but instead kicks him again before he could turn around, this time in the head. He crumples to the ground, and for a moment Sky smirks at her good fortune.

Then he springs up to face her. She sees something in his eyes that she doesn't like. It's that crazed high that people get with stuff like LSD. She is probably some kind of demon to him. She only has a second to drop into a proper stance before he moves. He tackles her, the drugs making him unusually strong, and pins her against the wall on the other side of the narrow alley. The air leaves her lungs in a sudden exhale.

"You asking for a bite, darlin'?" He sneers and Sky gags from the smell of his teeth. She was right about how disgusting he would be. She absently hopes she doesn't get lice from him.

"Fuck you, villain." She says with no small amount of self-satisfaction.

She stamps on his foot and he releases her just enough for her to pull and punch.

Frank taught her how to punch, if it ever came to that. She always wanted to tuck her thumb into her fist and squeeze. That's an especially good way to get your thumb broken. Put it tight to the side of your fist and grip loosely so as to not hurt yourself. In the moment of Sky's anger she decides to punch him close-fisted and just hope for the best.

She's not any stronger than she was before, at least she doesn't think she's any stronger, but her impenetrable skin amplifies anything she does a hundred fold. She doesn't give at all, but the bones and skin of those mere mortals around her give quite easily. It's kind of like punching someone with a brick but the brick is light to you and extra heavy to them.

When her fist makes contact she can hear the cracking of his jaw and then his cheekbone shatter. She follows through and in the moment with her momentum and her skin she easily brings his whole body into the ground, and when pavement meets normal bones the pavement wins.

He is out cold and bleeding. _I may have killed him_ , she thinks...then shrugs. She steps over him and quickly hurries over to the doe-eyed lady crouching and watching the broken man bleed in the streets. Everything smells like decay...except her. She smells, weirdly, like lemongrass. Something so clean and fresh is an anachronism in a place like this.

She cowers, so Sky holds up her hands to show she doesn't mean her any harm. To be fair, the woman did just watch Sky take down a man twice her size with one punch to the face. She, better than anyone, is allowed to be a little freaked out right about now.

"It's okay, don't worry, he won't be getting up any time soon." She says quietly.

The woman shakes her head, and then as if realizing for the first time that this girl saved her instead of killing her, she smiles cautiously.

She quickly rummages through her bag and sticks her hand out, a wad of cash clumsily grasped in in her shaking fist. Her wide eyes look eager to give Sky something as way of thanks.

Sky smiles softly. "Thank you, but no thank you. You don't need to give me anything." Sky turns to walk away, but the women's voice cuts clean through the night.

"Please wait!" She calls. Sky reluctantly turns around to see her getting to her feet with much difficultly, and then leaning heavily against the brick building behind her. It's almost like she was the one to get in a fight instead of Sky. Sky tries not to judge her too much.

"Take some of the money at least; you look like you could use a hot meal." She smiles not unkindly at Sky.

Sky tentatively reaches out and takes a fifty from her hands. The rest she leaves, even as the woman beckons. "Thank you."

The woman nods her head, obviously still shaken by her attacker. She even glances towards the unmoving figure a few feet away.

"Is there anything else I can do to thank you?" Her eyes don't leave the bleeding man.

"No, this is more than enough. Thank you," Sky adds. She even turns to walk away.

Something tugs at her mind.

It would be stupid to ask that. How would she know anything?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained...

"Actually, ma'am," Sky calls after the woman; she was already on the outside street and indeed was hurriedly walking away. "You probably don't know anything, but I thought I would just ask. Do you know of anyone named Rawlins?"

The woman stops.

Her voice is spilling trepidation. "How do you know that name?"

Sky is momentarily taken aback. "I heard it spoken by some really colossal asshats and I've been looking to find him because he may know something about my missing brother." She says, probably revealing too much in her confusion.

The woman shakes her head. "Don't say that name in any government building or where anyone can hear you or else you'll be arrested."

She frowns, exaggeratedly. "Rawlins isn't even that rare of a name. What if I have a hair dresser named Rawlins?"

The woman doesn't find this funny, not in the least. "I can't tell you anything past that he is well known to the CIA and is not the kind of person you want to find yourself in the same country as."

Sky outright laughs at this, holding her stomach as she does so just to illustrate how absurd she thinks this. It just comes off as a tiny teenager being condescending. "This is hilarious - supremely hilarious! Why would you even know about him if he's so super-secret dangerous persona non grata?"

"I'm the secretary to the DA okay? I shouldn't even be talking to you about this!"

"And yet you are which makes me think you know something super important that would make me finding him so much easier and you are refusing to tell me." Sky shrugs. "Just tell me where he is, as repayment for me rescuing you."

The woman shakes her head. "Absolutely not! That would be revealing state secrets to- to what? A preteen?" The sneer is audible in her voice even if her face isn't visible.

Sky has already perfected the art of overreaction.

In a second Sky is at the mouth of the alley. She grabs the woman's long and thin throat between both her small hands and throws her against the wall.

"I am _so_ _not_ in the mood to deal with your shit, lady." Sky spits out. The woman's neck is soft, and Sky does her best not to choke her. She's so delicate and thin, such an easy target. Or so Sky thought.

The woman stops clutching at her throat and throws her arm down, breaking the hold Sky has on her. Sky stumbles and the woman take the opportunity to kick her in the stomach with her kitten heel digging into Sky's belly as she pushes her away. In a heartbeat the woman has a gun in her hand, the purse discarded. She points a 9mm Glock at Sky, the safety clicked off with her thumb.

Sky slowly puts her hands up.

This is not at all what she was expecting. Obviously there is something far bigger going on here and Sky has only just broken the surface of the ocean.

Her hands start to sweat as she meets the woman's gaze steadily. She must be some kind of cop or something, right? No one would stand like that, with that much comfort in her authority. The woman has a little smirk on her face, a fact that unsettles Sky. A moment ago Sky saved her ass, and then threatened her, and now _she's_ the one with a gun pointed at her? This is definitely not something Sky could have seen coming.

The big question...

Is she immune to bullets as well?

 _I had better play it safe for a little bit just to see._

In the most calming voice she can Sky starts coaxing the woman. "Please put the gun down, I only wanted to know where Mr. Rawlins was. Please don't shoot me."

The tears from before are gone. The woman no longer looks afraid, but smug.

"I've been canvasing this area for days to make sure everything is fine, and I finally talk to someone who may know the comings and goings of Rawlins and who shows up? You. You show up and you toss my witness to the ground, like it was nothing. Now I had read the file, I knew what Rawlins was probably up to but I had never met one of his soldiers in real life until you came along." She laughs. "Do you think I believe it was an accident that the same night he's resurfacing some enhanced teen starts throwing that name around?" She asks this like she's the smartest FBI -or CIA, or whatever she is- around.

Sky shuts her mouth with a snap.

"Wait, you think I'm working for Rawlins?!" Sky says in complete disbelief.

The woman rolls her eyes. "I may be new to the force but do you really think I'm that stupid?"

Sky bites down on her tongue to stop her retort. It turns out she can't stop herself from saying anything even with a gun pointed at her head.

"Well you can't be too smart because not only have you just told me that Rawlins is building an army but that he's also resurfacing tonight and it must be around here or else you wouldn't be bothering talking to the local scum to try and see if they've noticed him." Sky smiles coldly.

The woman's eyes widen. Then a realization settles over her. Something about her gaze makes Sky feel suddenly cold. That smudged makeup makes her look like some kind of a demented clown.

"Rawlins is too important to let one of his creations get in the way of our success tonight. No one need know my mistake."

Before Sky can say anything the woman pulls the trigger.

Sky is knocked off her feet, not ready for the blow.

The woman runs off in her low heels, determined not to let her first mission in the field be a disaster.

Sky lets her go because she's too amazed.

She picks the dry bullet off of her completely intact skin.

She begins to laugh.

 _I am bulletproof._

And she is already up and running.

Rawlins dies tonight.

"Do we even know who she's going after?" Karen says angrily.

Frank just stands there, stricken. "No."

"Why would she think these guys knew anything about her brother? Did they say something to her? What was she thinking?" Karen mutters the last part to herself, and her blue eyes roam the basement where Frank is staying. He's just glad that the military lifestyle makes him be absurdly clean.

He sighs. "She's the girl who thought it was reasonable to jump out a window because she was upset. Does she do anything that makes sense?"

They had been all over the city, but a city this big can make you feel like you're going in circles; unless you have a heading, which they do not.

"I'm sorry Frank, this is my fault. I should have known she would react like that. She did the same thing at the coffee shop before she was taken. God, that feels like years ago."

Karen looks as beautiful as ever as she sits down on his futon. Frank absently wonders about her. If they had met under different circumstances, him maybe not being a Marine and going on a revenge killing spree and her not trying to bring him back to the light, would they be like this? Would they even be friends?

They are both so shaped by their actions. He's often wondered what she sees in him. Does she see redemption? Because if she did before she certainly stopped after he murdered the Blacksmith.

There's no denying he feels it though. That bond that runs between them. There's no explaining it in plain language, at least not the language that Frank knows, but it's there and real nonetheless.

They don't talk about what happened in her apartment.

Weirdly, Frank can't stop thinking about it.

He loads up his duffle bag. Although he never went to sniper school he is fairly proficient with a rifle and scope. Nothing too far, no targets too difficult, and he can probably take them out. It angers him that there's a part of his training that isn't, in his mind, complete.

"I don't know what to do, Frank." Karen says distantly. He loves when she says his name. Although it's so hard for him to listen, since it makes his nose twitch and his heart pump blood hotter and faster. He presses it back, of course, because it's foreign to feel something other than rage and avenging determination.

She turns and looks at him, her arms hugging close to her. When she looks at him like that, so unguarded, he gets that strange pull and instinct to hold her, caress her, kiss her...

Instead he says, "You should have a shower. You can take the bed and I'll go get food." It comes out so abrupt that Karen kind of blinks a little before nodding. Frank tries not to analyse his reaction to that.

She goes into the small bathroom and Frank waits until he hears the water running before he gets his police radio out. Turning it on and tuning it, he listens for a little while.

He already knows what he's looking for.

He's very thankful when he hears it.

In a moment he's out the door and on his bike.

A do not interfere warning was sent. Some big CIA gig is going down and he follows his intuition that it has to be about their guy. If Sky has the street smarts he knows she has, she's probably already there and ready to interfere, just to make their lives miserable.

He turns down deserted streets, letting the knowledge he has of the city guide him as quietly as possible towards the impending trap.

Broken glass and boarded windows make this place look the equivalent of a dead body that is host only to maggots. That's all this place is good for, maggots that eat at it causing rot and decay until there is nothing left. That's all he sees of this city. Maybe he should go to and art gallery or something, just to prove that there are beautiful things that can't be destroyed. His mind corrects that: beautiful things that have _yet_ to be destroyed.

Something shifts near a garbage bin a block ahead of him. It could be a person, it could be a shadow. Frank doesn't take any chances.

Engine off, silent on his feet, he carries his shotgun loaded with buckshot and another six guns strapped to him at various places. A boot knife, two other knives strapped to his chest, and a few other things like extra magazines and bullets.

He opens his jacket to let the white skull underneath cast him in an even scarier light.

If his dead family was watching, they'd think he was some kind of avenging angel. Or demon.

Sticking close to the darkened sidewalks, he carefully avoids anything that could make sound: broken glass, empty pop cans, and the like. He picks his way to where the road hooks a sharp turn and tall buildings encroach on the night sky. For how industrial it is, these apartments sure are big, but for Frank the seeming desertion is what puts his instincts on high alert. Where is everyone?

He realizes a moment later, bringing his gun up to hidden figures around him.

Like ghosts he can't tell if they're real or his broken mind playing games with him. He never doubts fully though, never risks letting his guard down, even if he doesn't trust the world he sees around him.

One moves and he fires, toppling a man from a twelfth story window. He swings to shoot again when a voice stops him.

"Frank Castle," a smirk in the voice.

Frank stops dead in his tracks.

His name sounds ever so familiar in the tone and intonation of the darkest of dark horses, of a devil who Frank thought he would never hear or see again. Frank looks over and sees true hell over again.

Rawlins stands there, Sky on her knees, chained and gagged, at his feet. She doesn't look up but sobs hysterically, the tears painting lines down her face. This isn't like before, this isn't fear that Frank sees on her face, it's a kind of horror, like she's seen something that made her surrender without a fight. She looks like she's just gotten news that her whole family died in a house fire, and there isn't even enough of them left to bury. No bones to bury, no family left.

Frank fights down his rage, his need to kill anyone who has hurt one of the few people left in his life that he could care about. Instead he looks at Rawlins.

His too white smile pulls the tight skin taunt as a drum over his protruding teeth. Those eyes, so empty, gaze at Frank as if at a lover...or a piece of meat.

"It's been a long time since we last saw each other."

 **Author's note: Hey all! Thanks for reading my new chapter. Sorry it took me so long to write, I wasn't sure how to do it justice on paper. Again, I appreciate all the support and reads and comments I get on my stories. I hope you like where this is going! Stay tuned, the next chapter will be soon.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Karen Page did not want to do this.

But the hotheads in her life have left her no choice, apparently.

She takes the stairs up the building, unable to keep still long enough to endure another damn elevator ride. Her shoes pinch at her toes and her head is swimming. She had waited a full day. Just one. But it was already too much. She had wasted too much time while the people she cares about most are out there, vulnerable, or worse.

Sleeping alone in Frank's home, if you could call it that, was a weirdly intimate experience. She kept on expecting him to walk through the door and wake her, like the old sitcoms with a "Honey, I'm home!" echoing through the basement. No such moment came.

Trying not to think about it, she pauses on the landing to take her foot out of the shiny pastel pink shoe, rub her pinky toe, and continue on her ascent towards a terrible inevitability. Just like when she went to Frank when Sky was taken, she knows there really isn't an alternative. However, things are different now. Like how she and the Punisher nearly got naked in her kitchen. Yeah. That happened. And Karen won't soon forget it, even though she keeps pushing it to the back of her mind.

"Fucking hell," she whispers to herself. She really didn't mean for any of this to happen and _definitely not_ with the Punisher. The big, bad, Punisher.

 _What the hell is wrong with me?_

 _What is your fascination with Frank Castle?_

The thing about kissing someone so deeply and confessing so much in that moment is that, no matter where she turns, she's always feeling him. She'll be walking on the street and smell him, or at least something that reminds her of him. She'll press her fingers to her lips and remember how his lips felt pressed against hers. She's dangerously near schoolgirl level obsession.

He's dangerous, a murderer, a _man._ That's what she sees above all else, a man too much like her. He sees things properly, clearly, unlike any other man she's ever had feelings for.

So this is inevitable. She has to do what she can. She _has to_ save Frank Castle.

The man she loves.

That brings her to a full stop.

No way, _no way._ Maybe she was just sleep deprived? She's probably losing her damn mind. No that can't be the truth, there must be another explanation, _any_ other explanation, for that stray thought, that weird confession to herself.

She wishes she could ignore the ring of truth to it, as she presses the palms of her hands into her eyes. She wishes…maybe she doesn't even know what she wishes. Just something else.

She reaches the floor and dammit she thought she would be more ready to face it, not less. With all that's been going through her head though, it's like she's drunk and unable to tell a lie.

Huffing out a breath she walks onto the floor, the dim lights making her feel like she's in a tomb. Her heels clip along on the hard floor and the rhythm is the only thing that keeps her from faltering.

On her left she sees the door.

And just like with Frank she freaks out a little when she knocks.

 _This is a terrible idea-this is a terrible idea-this is-_

The door opens.

"Karen?"

She sighs. "Hi Matt."

Sky's Father was Orthodox Christian, specifically Coptic, and so Sky grew up very afraid of Hell.

Suddenly though, Hell doesn't seem so far away to Sky.

It was easy enough to gag her and tie her up when her very will to live was being tested. She sobs frantically against the cloth in her mouth.

 _It can't be-it can't be-it can't be-_ On a loop in her head.

She's in full shutdown mode. Full on breaking apart at the edges.

Vaguely she realizes the Punisher is there. He looks at her worried. _Why isn't she fighting her bonds?_ He seems to say. He sees too much, as always. But she has no fight in her. Not after what she's just seen.

Rawlins hauls her up by a rope he has around her neck. He even had her change into a dirty prison jumpsuit, just to humiliate her. Or to make Frank angry.

"Don't think about doing anything too rash Castle. I have your pet on a leash here. And about thirty snipers have both you and her in their crosshairs. I know you'd hate to bury her if she didn't have a face anymore." He laughs, as if he said something funny.

Frank's voice is violence incarnate. "You bastard."

Rawlins holds up his finger. "Oh no, I don't think you should be doing that, Castle. It would be better if you didn't have to bury this little Skylark at all, right? Funeral costs kill in this city."

Sky isn't even able to bring her eyes up to see Frank drop his gun. She just hears. It all sounds hollow, like it's faraway from her.

 _I think I'm going into shock._

Her skin _is_ clammy, and her hands feel cold. She can't really bring herself to care. Her brief first aid training in middle school comes back to her in that moment, strange enough. _Identify what has caused your casualty to go into shock. If it is excessive bleeding, begin by applying pressure to the wound. Wrap the casualty in a blanket if possible, and call for medical aid. Remember, shock can be life-threatening, so don't ignore the signs._

This is not the time for a monotone female voice to be relaying facts about shock in Sky's mind, but she can't really seem to stop it.

She also can't seem to stop panicking.

Her hearing goes fuzzy. _I think I am going to faint._

Frank can't believe they got him.

He is so good. Everything is calculated. Everything is thought of.

When he took down the Irish it was meticulous, even getting caught was part of the plan. He can honestly say there is no plan here.

He glowers at Rawlins, and Rawlins just smiles in return.

He still has a fucking eyepatch over the eye he lost when he and Castle had last danced this dance. What a sickening time, he had shown just how much of a monster he really was. Frank was convinced he felt nothing at all. Nothing for the wife he had tortured and valued less than shit, nothing for the lives he had taken or otherwise destroyed. Willian Rawlins was a monster, and it takes a monster to know one.

Rawlins was not an unattractive man, with his dark hair combed back and a sharp jaw and figure well sculpted from his time being a CIA operative. It was the eyes that gave him away. Frank had never registered their colour, just assuming they were shit brown. But _how_ he looked at people, how his eyes showed no soul behind them. They were empty, like looking into the eyes of a fresh corpse. Except these eyes followed you wherever you went, stalked you, always calculating what would benefit him most, what could cause the most damage.

"You know what I'm capable of Castle, and I'm just surprised you let me catch you! My God, Frank-fucking-Castle," he begins to walk towards Frank, dragging Sky by the rope around her neck. She still doesn't fight. The only thing telling the world that she's even alive is the shaking radiating from her body.

"Frank Castle," he says again as if tasting the name. Frank looks at him, stares into that one, dead eye. He's clean shaven and wearing a dark blue suit with a pinstripe shirt underneath. He looks very different from the CIA shitbag he was before.

"What do you want?" Frank is barely able to spit out.

Rawlins' eye widens. "Obviously I want you Castle! Now, this isn't to mention the bad blood we have between us, this is solely business." He makes eye contact with one of his minions and they grab Frank roughly and search him producing the rest of his weaponry. "At first I was bent on killing you, taking you off the map because you were just so damn persistent and such an annoying thorn in my ass. But then I realized just how valuable a man like you could be to me. Although, there are no men _quite_ like you, right Castle?" One minion kicks in the back of his leg and he falls clumsily to the ground, only his instinct and training keeping him upright. It's humiliating to kneel to this piece of shit.

Rawlins stares down at him. "I was amazed when I realized you would come for her. The first time I took your pet all I wanted was information. To be fair," he squats down in front of him, "My thugs weren't exactly gentle."

Frank gets just enough leverage on his right foot to be able to headbutt him with all possible force. Rawlins stumbles back, swearing as he clutches at his bleeding nose and bit lip. Blood drips slowly onto his clean shirt and the streetlight shrouds him in a momentary light like that of an opera house. He looks more natural this way, bleeding while trying to grapple for power.

Frank smiles. "You may want to get that looked at."

Rawlins spits in Frank's face, showering his left cheek in blood. "Ever the same, Castle."

But Frank sees his persona is fractured, and the manipulation is broken momentarily. Rawlins turns from him and kicks Sky in the head. She falls without making a sound, her eyes closed.

"Take them to the base," is all he says, his words muddled by the blood in his mouth.

Frank is ready to fight the moment they bring him up.

But instead someone stabs him in the neck with a syringe, pumping something into his bloodstream. The images around him cloud and the last thing he manages to say -before darkness takes him- is a vow.

"I will come for you. I won't stop."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The world was tilted.

Everything felt weird and wrong, like the very air Karen was breathing somehow contained no oxygen. She felt equal parts naked in her casual pants and white blouse and suffocated.

Feeling the warmth of Matt's body next to her on the subway bench certainly didn't help.

"So, just so I understand," Matt says, his voice laced with judgement, "You've been teaming up with Frank Castle, _the Punisher,_ and taking care of this teenager, and now the both of them are in danger -you _think_ \- and you are just now coming to me for help."

Karen rolls her wide blue eyes and chooses to stare into the dark subway tunnel instead of looking at Matt as their train shakes them softly towards their destination.

Finally, she can't keep her mouth shut. "Oh yeah, like how you left me last time we talked was conducive to me just casually dropping in and asking for your help."

His head tilts a little, lips pursed. "You were the one who left, Karen."

She huffs out a sarcastic laugh. "All you've ever done was lie to me. Why would I stick around?"

He's silent for a long time, probably listening to the angry thump of her heart like a pervert.

Karen bites at a hangnail on her pinky finger. It's been quiet jabs and lots of useless dialogue about how she got herself into this mess and who was to blame (apparently her), since the moment they got on this train. She was already not interested in seeing Matt again, like ever, and yet here she is.

"Frank is a good man, Matt. Yes, we were working together, and no I don't condone _all_ his actions…"

"Oh, but you condone _some_ of his actions?" He interrupts, disdain in his voice.

She turns to him, her eyes blue fire. "Because you're such a saint Matt? Oh I know how your hero complex works, innocent Catholic boy just doing what he can right? Well maybe Frank doesn't pretend to be something he isn't and maybe I find that refreshing. Maybe I find that fucking refreshing after the shit you put me through Matt."

She turns away, surprised at the hot tears in her eyes. She's so angry, she can't form words anymore, at least not without crying.

He swallows painfully. "Do you love him."

It wasn't a question, even though it may have been staged like it.

"For fucks sake Matt," Karen shakes her head, "This isn't some stupid fairytale."

"No, but that's not what I asked." He says quietly.

 _Some prince charming,_ Karen thinks to herself, remembering her own words.

They ride in silence for the rest of the trip.

Sky is picked up from under the armpits and is thrown into a cell, landing on her shoulder painfully.

She lays crumpled on the floor for an eternity.

How is what she's seen even possible? She's witnessed enough to make her wonder about some things in this world, but there are things that just can't happen. The shit that's happened to her, this is where she draws the line.

"Hello?" a somewhat timid voice calls from the other side of the concrete cell.

Sky doesn't even lift her head, only grunts.

"Do you need help? Who are you? Do you know what's going on- oh no."

The sudden dread in that woman's voice makes Sky look up…

To see the blonde CIA agent who shot her.

She must look like a feral animal as she launches herself at the woman, all bared teeth and rage. Sky tackles the woman with so much force that Sky feels jostled from the impact when the CIA bitch hits the ground. Screeching some inhuman sound Sky grabs the woman and slams her down again against the unbending concrete floor.

"You bitch, you _shot_ me." Sky howls and pulls her fist back to punch her in the face, fulling hoping to send her manicured ass to an early grave.

"Wait! I-I can help you!" The woman screams as she throws her hands up to defend her face. Sky finds this weirdly funny, because of how little help it would do, like trying to stop a bullet by plugging the barrel with your finger. Something in the words makes Sky hesitate nonetheless. She stares down at the woman, breathing heavily with her fresh anger pulsing through her veins. She needed an outlet and this provided a perfect opportunity.

"How can you help me?" She asks, surprisingly evenly.

The woman's wide eyes look up at Sky through spread fingers.

"These-these people who have us, I h-have information! I can help you!" she manages to get out without fainting.

Sky doesn't lower her fist. "Talk."

Her commanding voice echoes in the small cell.

"Rawlins, you obviously don't work for him, but the CIA has been monitoring him for- for forever!" She laughs, a little unhinged. Sky places her left hand on the woman's neck and keeps her fist raised. She feels the woman swallow hard and her pulse quicken. She gets the message.

"He's an ex-CIA agent who went rogue and ended up in the drug trafficking trade, the human trafficking trade, you name it. He was branded persona non grata by the US government a few years ago and barred from coming back."

Sky sneers, "But evidently he _did_ come back, or is this just his evil twin?"

The woman whimpers, but Sky isn't convinced that this isn't her trying to play her again. "What's he doing in New York, woman?"

Her eyes shine, "We've been collecting intelligence that leads us to believe that he's building an army to be able to take over the government, first in New York and then who knows where. He has ties to some illegal experimentation that has happened on US soil and all reports lead back to the notion that he targets youth in their prime and then enhances them."

Sky blinks, once…twice…

"Enhancements?!" She spits out.

The woman nods, not making eye contact. "Like-like you! Super strength, enhances reflexes and speed, even bulletproof skin. He can brainwash people too, into doing whatever he wants. Some say that if he asked them to kill themselves they would."

Sky sits back heavily, still straddling the woman but no longer pinning her.

 _Brainwashing._

It's the only explanation.

The woman moves suddenly but Sky is back in an instant, the woman's throat pinned under Sky's elbow.

The woman growls. "Bitch."

Sky laughs. "Wow you're one to talk. You shot me. _You're_ the bitch."

The woman rolls her eyes. "Kay, but you don't seem any worse for it so don't hold it against me."

Sky shakes her head. "Oh, I will."

Frank smiles a bloody smile.

Rawlins sneers and punches him again.

During a brief reprieve, Rawlins turns away to wipe his bloodstained hands on a stark white towel. "What do you think is going to happen here, Castle?"

Frank doesn't hold back. "I think I'm going to shove your nose so far down your throat you'll smell your own shit."

Rawlins smirks at that. "You know, you haven't changed Frank. Of all to sons-of-bitches I've come across you are the most relentless in your eloquence." He turns to look at him, his unseeing eye looking vaguely demonic.

"You know what has changed? You've gotten soft. And, honestly, really easy to capture. You only killed a couple of my guys before we took you down." He smiles, a sickening sight. "You do seem to have moved on from your family though – adopted a new puppy, huh?"

Glad he's finally irked Frank, Rawlins slips on the brass knuckles and punches Frank in the gut.

Breathing heavily Frank glares at him but says nothing.

Rawlins' voice is level. "I didn't think that a stray teenager and a beautiful reporter would be enough to sway _the_ Punisher, but I'm not complaining – really! It made my job significantly easier."

Frank doesn't give him the reaction he wants so he hits him again.

Spitting blood he finally asks the dying question. "What the fuck do you want from me Rawlins?"

Considering, he answers slowly, pulling a chair over to sit in front of him. It must be exhausting torturing someone. "I guess revenge for almost killing me and maiming me, but honestly, that's a pretty small part of it. I'm a businessman Frank." He gestures broadly. "This is my empire! To think I started by stealing confiscated drugs from the CIA…I've come so far."

Frank tries not to roll his eyes.

 _I've been spending too much time with Sky,_ he thinks.

"I'm a king of my world, and I'm about to take over whatever tickles my fancy."

"Oh and let me guess, you're going to compel me to help you with that?" Frank says, his voice like concrete.

Rawlins tries not to show how angry he is with Frank guessing the punchline. "You _are_ going to help me. Hell, you'll crawl on your knees behind me if I want you to."

"What are you gonna do, eh? Kill everyone I love? I'm sure that'll end well for you." Frank states bitterly.

Finally, Rawlins is done with this. "I'm going to brainwash you and use you as my personal cock-sucking bitch. Sound like fun Frank?"

Frank smiles calmly, because he knows something that Rawlins doesn't.

For the past minutes that he's been chatting away like some Hollywood housewife, Frank has been sawing away at the coarse rope binding his wrists with his diamond-tips fingernails.

"You know what your mistake is, Rawlins?" Frank asks, ignoring everything that the man had just said.

Rawlins sits back. "Humour me."

Frank shift slightly. "Being around a teenage girl whole loves black nail polish has opened up certain doors that would otherwise be closed. Also, you people never learn to use something a little sturdier than rope."

A flash of confusion followed by fear crossed Rawlins' face.

Frank launches out of chair and tackles Rawlins just as the guards pull up their guns. Frank holds him up in front of him, his sharp nails piercing the soft and fleshy skin of Rawlins' neck.

"Don't shoot!" Rawlins commands.

He speaks to Frank slowly, frantically trying to be diplomatic. "You can't get out of this without you dying. You're horribly outnumbered, there's nothing you can do. Even if you kill me you won't get out alive."

Leaning in close Frank holds him in the embrace a half second longer.

"Who said I was alone?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

When Matt had told Karen explicitly to stay outside and to not get involved, she had agreed. She made sure that she didn't agree too quickly, that she put up enough of a fight so that he would believe that he really _had_ convinced her to stay where it's safe. Well, _safer_.

So when he went inside, slowly creeping around in his be-damned jumpsuit (that he was wearing under his clothes), she waited just long enough before following.

He ran off to where there would be the most action. After all, he was a hero.

Karen knew better. She had seen how these guys think.

She followed her instincts, knowing that if Frank trusted her instincts, she could too. Gun drawn, in more sensible shoes, and hair pulled back, she looks more like herself than she ever had before. The dark side of her mind personified. What won't she do to save Frank Castle.

She creeps along the unnervingly well-lit hallways of the small office building where, apparently, Rawlins is hiding. Her rubber soled shoes are silent on the white linoleum and she quietly thanks her past self for having the sense to stop at her new apartment before heading out.

She sees the stairwell just in front of her, the word "STAIRS" printed in aggressive (and ugly) red block letters on the grey door. Her pace quickens, still looking over her shoulder, she breaks for the door. A moment of hesitation falters her tracks. She ducks into an empty closet only seconds before that door she was running to is thrown open and multiple men jog past her.

"The Devil of Hell's Kitchen? Here? Call for further backup."

Their voices echo as Karen releases a tight breath she didn't realize she was holding.

 _This is insanity._

Biting her lip to keep her thoughts at bay she runs for the stairwell, pushing the door quietly open and shutting it slowly behind her. The concrete stairs would amplify anyone coming up or down who wasn't wearing shoes like hers, so after confirming for a moment that she's alone, Karen starts running up the stairs taking them two at a time.

Reaching the top floor only three floors later, she pauses a moment. Her gun comes up as she sights down the barrel, knowing well that there could be anyone on the other side of that door.

She breathes for a moment, steadying her hand before opening the door with her foot. She checks down both hallways, to her left and ahead of her, but no one to be seen.

A stray hair falls into her face and she swats it away. She begins traveling down the hallway in front of her, stepping lightly. Her hearing is strained, hoping to pick up any noise that would lead her to Frank.

As she reaches the end of the hallways she hears a sound to her left, just at the edge of her hearing.

His voice.

She follows that pull she feels right to an open door. She can hear him talking clearly now, and she peeks into the room.

Inside is a small private office that is completely devoid of any furniture except the chair Frank is tied to and the chair the guy who must be Rawlins is sitting on. They're having a bit of banter and Frank is really beat up. Karen's stomach turns at seeing him with fresh bruises painting his face and naked torso. She tries not to stare too long at the latter, even though his sculped chest is breathing heavily.

His head rolls a little and she sees the flash of his eyes as they meet hers. She feels the jolt of electricity between them. That's all that he gives away: but he knows that she's there. He faces Rawlins again, the two guards on the sides itching to pull the trigger on their respective rifles.

She watches him smirk and eye Rawlins like meat. He speaks clearly, so she can hear, his voice like rough sandpaper. "Being around a teenage girl whole loves black nail polish has opened up certain doors that would otherwise be closed. Also, you people never learn to use something a little sturdier than rope."

In a heartbeat he's out of his chair and has his hand around Rawlins' throat, his nails digging in and pricking a beadwork of blood from around his jugular.

The guards have their rifles up and glance apprehensively to each other. Clearly they never expected this. Rawlins' voice is strained as he bargains with Frank.

"You can't get out of this without you dying. You're horribly outnumbered, there's nothing you can do. Even if you kill me you won't get out alive." His good eye bulges from its socket and Karen finally sees the entirety of him.

He's not as old as she thought he would be, but bald and with a milky eye. She couldn't see him as attractive, but his demeanor says that that's how he sees himself. Powerful. Domineering. Intimidating. She feels a jolt of revulsion looking at this monster. Even with Frank threatening his life he still looks smug, like he holds the better cards in every hand he plays.

Frank smiles a chilling smile.

"Who said I was alone?"

Karen steps into the doorway, gun pointed at one of the guards' head.

There is a moment of surprise as the guards' eyes pass nervously between her and Frank.

Rawlins laughs. "Your backup is the reporter? She may be blonde but I didn't realize she was actually stupid-" his voice cuts out as Frank squeezes tighter.

"Now, why don't you drop your guns and let us leave with Rawlins' here?" Frank murmurs dangerously.

Rawlins' face is even more smug now. "You are hilarious. This is a good old-fashioned stand off and you expect me to give you the upper hand?"

Frank only replies. "Fair enough."

In a flash he goes for the guard Karen doesn't have her gun on, pushing his riffle out of the way so the shot he fires goes into the ceiling and grabs his throat and rips. Without hesitation Karen shoots the other guard, the shot landing right above his left eye, snapping his head back before he crumples to the ground. Frank's nails rip out the other guard's throat and he's left gasping, eyes wide and liters of blood spill from his cut veins and arteries.

Frank picks up the discarded rifle from the now dead guard and slowly turns to Rawlins.

Like an elite predator he stalks Rawlins and looks down at him on the ground. He spits blood once before aiming at his head.

Rawlins is sputtering, almost dissolved into tears, and continues to bargain.

Frank silences him with a look. "I think you've done enough."

He sights and-

The gun is hit out of his hand by a baton.

Karen whirls, meeting Matt eye-to-eye.

"Red?" Frank says, his voice laced with genuine confusion.

"Hello Frank, I see we're still killing people?" He walks into the room more, making to get to Rawlins.

Frank steps in front of him, his height blocking Matt's way. "Who the fuck invited you?"

Karen groans.

"Karen here said she needed backup to come and save your ass, as well as some teenager's. You're welcome."

"Oh yeah? Well I'll just finish this piece of shit lying here weeping and then I'll leave." Frank stares angrily down at Matt even though he's only a few inches taller.

Matt tilts his head. "I can't let you do that Frank."

Karen has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "Oh my God Matt-"

Silence.

Only then does she realize what she said.

Matt doesn't turn to her, but Frank looks down at him with the face of a man who has known all along. "You know I said I don't care who you are, I mean it." He says.

Matt wrinkles his nose and looks away. "Thanks Frank."

"But you have to get out of my way, Red."

"Not gonna happen."

"You are between me and my chance and killing one sick bastard. You're between me and revenge."

"And what will that get you Frank? Will you retire after he's dead."

"Like _you_ would retire."

"Maybe you've done enough-"

"There are still men out there like him-"

"Just let me take him to jail-"

"So he can get out on a plea deal? No fucking way."

"Frank-"

A shot echoes through the room and both men jump.

Karen lowers her gun, a hole in Rawlins' thigh starts gushing blood. He starts screaming.

"See? A compromise. Now can we go?"

Matt stares at her with muted horror, but Frank smiles quietly, proudly.

At that moment the stairwell at the end of the hallway (the opposite one to where Karen came in) is thrown open and voices spill into the hall.

Her eyes are frantic. "We have to go."

Matt turns to Frank, "Get her out of here and I'll hold them off."

Frank doesn't need any more prodding, he grabs the rifle and hurries Karen out of the room, his hand pressed to the small of her back.

He fires down towards the men emerging from the stairways as they trace the route Karen walked to get there.

"There's another set of stairs on the other side, let's go!" She yells to him.

Matt emerges from the room, batons in hand, and runs into the fray. Frank takes this opportunity to turn and run with Karen by his side down the hallway.

The skid into the door and hurry down the stairs, Frank leading the way.

Karen trips, but Frank grabs hold of her and carries her on.

At the landing on the first floor they burst through the door, but see far down more men coming towards them. Without thinking Karen pulls him into the closet she was in before and shuts the door, plunging them into darkness.

She can only hope she was fast enough so that they didn't see them.

In the tiny closet they pant, hot from their escape, but they stand close together, unable to move further apart in the tiny space.

They are silent for a moment, waiting for a gunshot through the door. When it doesn't come Frank speaks in hushed tones. "You shouldn't have come for me," he whispers to her, close enough to her ear that she feels his breath on her neck.

Their thighs are pressed to each other and their backs are against metal shelving units. They could be hugging if both of their arms weren't so limp at their sides. The warmth of their shared heat is enough to make it hard to breathe.

"Why not?" she asks, unable to help herself.

As their eyes adjust to the dim light under the door, she can see him genuinely smile. "I try to leave you behind to keep you safe and you just show up, guns blazing to save me."

She swallows hard. "I had a bad feeling about it. I had to find you."

"But why did you have to bring Red?"

She sputters a little laugh, quickly covering her mouth.

But because she moved her arm its now making contact with his bare chest. She lowers it a little but then presses her palm into his chest. "Does it hurt?" She asks looking up at him.

His eyes are closed. "No."

She smiles to herself. "You're the toughest person I know."

He catches her hand before she can take it away. She looks up, confused.

He stares down at her, his expression unguarded, his eyes exposing the emotion behind them.

"You're incredible, you know that?"

It's as if they aren't in a tiny closet, but instead in their own private universe, separate from everyone else. Their closeness over these weeks is comparable to nothing she's felt before. She's never felt this way for a person: something so real and yet intangible. It doesn't even make sense to her. Every single time she tries to remind herself that he kills people, she can't help but remember the time he saved her from the attack in her apartment when they had only just met. Or the time he would rather be tortured himself than have an innocent dog pay the price. He protects her, has protected her, and will continue to protect her. These aren't the kind of things you do for just anyone, or what just anyone would do for you.

Tentatively, as if she is afraid he'll run away, she traces his torso with her hand, roaming over the rise and fall of him. She feels his breath quicken.

"I think," she hesitates a moment biting her lip, "I think-"

But Karen doesn't finish her sentence. Whatever space was left between them is gone and he is kissing her. He tilts her head and she kisses him as if they were in a fever dream. Drinking him in like water she pulls him ever closer, wanting to abandon all others in the world for only him in their own quiet universe. It's the passion of lovers about to die, or maybe it's the suppressed feelings between them. Whatever it is she wants more of him. It couldn't be something as simple as desire, it's a deeper attraction - like a black hole it takes them in and crushes then into nothing and everything. It's the pull of two souls who understand each other in a language deeper than words. Their universe is as bright as a supernova.

She would have had him now if it wasn't for the cramped space or the guards looming outside their door. She breaks away, sad to have stopped, but looks at him. "We have to go."

His arms stay at her back and she likes being held by him a little too much.

Like a schoolboy caught looking at a pretty girl he looks sheepish and smiles.

"We should find Sky," Karen says worriedly.

Frank nods, "She's not here but I think I know where she may be."

She nods, ready for whatever is past that door.

He pushes the door open a little, seeing that there are two guards posted at the main entrance.

He creeps along the side, confident that Karen will follow, and quickly dispatches them.

He looks at her, grabs her hand, and they go through the doors together.

Like it was meant to be.

 **Author's note: Hello everyone! Thank you so much for reading my fanfiction. It means so much that you've read it this far (12 chapters does seem like a lot) and I hope you continue to read it! The slow-burn is starting to pay off... Also can I just say that The Punisher is out on Netflix in a couple days and I hope you're all as excited as I am! Have a great, nerdy, day!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Sky feels her balance shift as she slips and falls.

She grabs for purchase, but her hands grasp at air as her stomach drops and she plummets.

Realistically it was only maybe twenty feet down the elevator shaft, but it felt like forever before Sky's feet hit the ground and her knees buckled. Although it hurt, Sky was so angry she turns her head up and screams "Fuck you, Becky."

How does she always end up in situations like this?

Sky leads the way, looking around corners before quietly creeping down deserted hallways. The annoying CIA woman follows, noisily, behind.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" The woman bubbles and sobs behind her. Sky is within a heartbeat away from bashing her head against the wall and leaving her behind.

"No, I don't know where we're going, obviously, how am I supposed to know?" Sky has to stop herself from continuing to rant and breathe for a moment.

They walk in silence, the worries that Sky has about being seen diminishing quickly. There doesn't seem to be anyone here, which is bizarre, but okay. She still treads lightly.

"Do you want to know how they captured me?" The woman asks.

Sky rolls her eyes so she won't see. "No."

"Okay, but it's important!"

Sky full stop turns around and stares up at the totally unintimidating woman, even though she stands at least a foot over Sky. "Listen here _woman,_ I don't care. I don't care _at all,_ okay? How do I make this clear to you, you self-important, pretentious, fucking idiot sandwich?" Sky shakes her head at the stunned woman. "I don't know how they let you into the CIA. Seriously. I mean, our taxes are going to people like you. Well, not _my_ taxes because I'm a child who doesn't pay them - but still."

She turns and keeps walking, not in the least interested if the woman follows. She stomps angrily, unable to help herself. "You know, you're probably so entitled. Is your daddy old money? You probably grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin." Sky spits out.

"Wisconsin is a state."

"I KNOW." Sky slaps her palm against her forehead. "Geez, I bet your name is something super boring like Debbie – not even Deborah but _Debbie_ – or Brittany, or maybe Michelle…probably Michelle."

"There's nothing wrong with 'boring' names." She says defensively.

Sky doesn't even look at her, but out of the corner of her eye she can see her cross her arms in front of her chest like an exaggerated pout. "Oh there's nothing wrong with those names! It's just you that I have a problem with." Sky muses on her own ingenuity. "You know – you're probably named Becky, right?"

Angry silence. "Shut up."

Sky whips around. "Oh my gosh, is your name actually Becky?!"

"Shut up, asshole."

Sky is silent for a moment before bursting with laughter. "Oh wow. My mistake. Sorry _Becky._ " Sky walks a little further before turning around again. "Oh my gosh! Wow that's so hilarious. You're such a stereotype, you know? Like women have worked hard to dispel negative stereotypes and then there's just you — loving it."

They turn a corner and it all happens so quickly.

Two guards are standing by the glass doors that lead to the outside world.

Those two guards that recognize that two of their prisoners are escaping, their eyes widening behind the visors of their tactical suits. They reach for their guns, but Sky isn't afraid.

That is, until Becky grabs her from behind, getting her in a choke hold and cutting off her air. Sky bucks against her unyielding body. Sky stomps down with the heel of her shoe, but the woman's shoes easily deflect the assault. _That asshole must have steel-toed shoes._

"Where's the really good holding cell? She broke out of this one pretty easily." She says, calm.

Sky hits back at her, having minimal impact. She drops her weight, making the woman support her, hoping to get her hold to loosen. It doesn't work.

"We have the unused elevator – if that's what you mean, ma'am."

Purple fuzzy dots cover Sky's vision.

But she's also super fucking mad.

She's been with them the whole time.

"Come on guys, she's pretty feisty." Becky urges, only slightly more concerned.

The two of them grab Sky's legs, as she's about to pass out. The momentary reprieve shifts Becky's hold on her throat letting Sky drag in a heavy and painful breath.

They carry her maybe thirty feet before one of the guards drops her legs and opens a screeching door to the elevator shaft. Without ceremony, they put Sky on her feet and she stands dizzy for a moment.

"I hate this little bitch." Disdain drips from Becky's voice as, with one hand, she pushes Sky down the shaft.

It doesn't take long for Sky to get some company.

She tried climbing out of the shaft, but it was useless. Her stomach was clenched in hunger and her blood sugar had long since dropped below a level of comfort for Sky. Her body is now bundled in the corner of the shaft, the yellow light from the solitary blub casting shadows everywhere. It reminds Sky vaguely of one of those sticks of butter, it's so fucking yellow.

Sky had dozed off when voices above roused her from her sleep.

She blinks slowly, her dark eyes struggling to focus. The sounds of a fight and angered voices drip down to her. The door is dragged open, the painful screaming of a poorly oiled hinge making Sky cringe.

With about as much ceremony as with Sky, a woman is pushed down the shaft, lands hard and crumples. She grabs her ankle, a hissing noise of pain coming from her mouth, her golden blonde hair-

"Karen?!" Sky exclaims, with no little amount of surprise.

Karen looks up, pain setting into a frown on her face. As soon as she registers Sky being there she looks so relieved. "Sky, I'm so happy you're here."

Sky lifts an eyebrow. "Really Karen? You're happy to see me here? Captured by a bunch of madmen and FUCKING BECKY." She screams the last part at the partially open door.

Karen sighs. "Obviously not Sky. But don't worry – this is all part of the plan."

Sky laughs. "This is your plan?"

Karen smiles mysteriously, shifting her weight to take pressure off her twisted ankle. "Frank is the plan."

Frank is like a rampaging fire. He walks through the door, his signature skull covering his chest as he opens fire on the two guards there, not even giving them time to react. Two lethal shotgun slugs to the head, one each. He reloads. He has about four other guns on him, but this one is arguably the scariest for someone to see pointed at their face…or maybe it's just his favourite.

He traces the perimeter, when finally, more guards appear.

One shot, one kill.

Their chests bloom with blood and their panicked expressions as they realize their mistake are as identical and interchangeable as they are. The ones left over scramble over the corpses of their now dead friends as they hurry to escape.

Frank only smirks and follows their frantic flee.

They will lead him exactly where he needs to be.

But there was something Frank wasn't expecting.

One of them slams a big red button as he's running past and a single cell door opens at the end of the hallway. The cowards scramble inside and disappear.

Just in time for someone else to emerge.

Frank stares, stunned for a moment, at the kid who emerges. He can't be more than early twenties and yet with his head shaved and bumpy with scars from invasive surgeries he looks straight out of a horror movie. He turns and lifts his eyes to meet Frank's. Dead. They're near black and emotionless pits with nothing but oblivion in them.

He's lean but muscular, his caramel skin ashen like he doesn't go outside or like he hasn't been fed properly. He reminds Frank of a feral animal although he lacks the desperate hunger for survival. Frank doesn't know what to make of him.

Frank drops his shotgun and pulls his glock handgun with a full magazine. He sights down the barrel.

"Don't come any closer kid or I'll blow you away."

He starts walking, his feet zombielike. Frank holds his ground, his resolve strong but his conviction anything but. He doesn't want to hurt this kid but he knows he's going to have to.

Suddenly the kid leaps, unlike anything a human should be able to do. Luckily Frank's reflexes are sharp enough, he shoots the kid mid-air in the shoulder.

Not a fatal shot, but a debilitating one.

And yet the kid rolls with a grace of a feline without ever breaking eye contact. Frank pulls his knife, ready for a hand to hand fight, when suddenly the kid's eyes dart back. He stays perfectly still for a moment, like he's listening for something, before taking off in that direction.

Frank hauls ass to keep up with him, because he moves like a fucking lynx.

Frank skids around a corner just in time to see the situation play out.

Karen pulls herself out of what looks like an elevator shaft with Sky helping her up, her hand under her arm. Sky must hear the kid coming because she looks up. Instantaneous horror flashes across her face before the kid grabs Karen and hauls her up.

Frank's handgun is pointed at his head in half a second.

Sky throws herself in front of them. "WAIT!"

There's a moment of confusion when Karen frowns at Sky, Frank hesitates, and the kid doesn't move.

Sky turns slowly around to face the kid, her dark eyes wide.

"Jose?"

The kid's eye twitches.

"Jose, it's me, Sky. Do you remember me?" Her voice is cautious but also unbearably sad.

The kid shows no sign of recognition.

"My name is Sky…I'm your sister."

 **Author's Note: Hello again! Sorry for the absence, finals got the best of me. But being on break means I will be updating more (yay!). Also WOW the Punisher TV show did not disappoint! Although I think we were all a little angry about that elevator scene (which producer do I have to fight?) but if you haven't checked it out you should.**

 **Thank you for your continued support and I appreciate the comments I've been getting about this story; your feedback and your positive reviews make my day! If you celebrate Christmas, then Merry (late) Christmas and Happy New Year!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Foolish, foolish girl.

Frank, for once, doesn't know what to do.

There's a kind of horror in the dim hallway, like a tomb. Karen breathes slowly, her eyes blue and wide. Frank doesn't lower the gun. Of course not. But he also doesn't like pointing it at Sky's head.

Sky takes a step towards the kid, her feet hesitant, her arms raised in a smoothing manner, palms up. Her focus never waivers from her brother. She trusts Frank won't hurt her. Why would anyone trust the Punisher?

"Jose."

There's nothing it seems. He doesn't even flinch.

"Listen to my voice."

Maybe the funeral has already happened. Frank blinks but it's still there. The reality of what's happening. They never had a funeral for his wife, daughter, son. Or maybe they did, but he was supposed to be dead too. He can't stop seeing it, them. Their bodies, dead, dead, dead. They're dead because of him, because of him.

Karen's lips part like she wants to say something. Frank can't hear her, can't understand what she's telling him. He can't choose between them. He can't. Losing his family – he can't do it again.

But either way, by his action or his inaction, one of them dies.

"Sky get the fuck out of the way."

She lifts her head, her eyes bright, she addresses her brother. "Come on you dumb fuck. You're the one who insisted on getting two jobs _and_ doing illegal shit on the side to buy Asadero and Eggos for us. Don't do this to me again."

He's sweating, his head twitching now. He's probably hyped up on the drugs that made him this way. It's not a good sign. If he's getting agitated he might hurt Karen by accident. Even if he doesn't mean to, she would still die.

"Sky."

She doesn't listen.

"What about all the times you'd read Puff the Magic Dragon to me after Mama and Dad died? Or how you taught me to write my name in cursive? Or how you could spit your watermelon seeds ten feet?"

He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe.

Sky takes a step towards him.

"You know it's me, you fuck. Now let her go."

She leans.

"Let-"

The bullet knocks his head back, spreading the contents on the pavement.

Sky just stares at him for a moment.

Karen screams before covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes go to Sky, her concern for Sky always ahead of her own.

Frank swallows hard, a crazed look in his eye. He holsters his gun.

Sky does nothing. She just stares at the pool of crimson forming around her brother's head. His eyes are still open, but the bullet made a hole in between them. It looks like a gaping mouth, or a third eye. She sees his dead fingers, curled slightly, stop moving. So mangled and distorted he looks. Like he was dissected and put back together. Everyone knows that Frankenstein was the real monster, not his creation.

Sky turns ever so slowly, to face Frank.

There is no expression in her face.

Everyone is silent.

Finally, she drags her eyes up to his.

His eyes are only remorseful, hers are wet with tears. They start slowly as tears usually start. Then, like a river blocked of obstruction, they come all too quickly.

"I _had_ it." Her voice breaks.

He doesn't say anything. What can he say at this point?

She sniffles, wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

"Where are they?"

At first neither of them know what she's talking about. Frank meets Karen's eyes over Sky's head. She looks just as confused as he feels.

"Sky, who?" She says finally.

Sky turns to her, dangerously poised. "The men who did this to him."

Karen shakes her head slowly, a frown between her eyes. "Sky, I don't think-"

"Down the hallway where he and I came, they went down a set of stairs, it'll be to your right, first door."

Sky gives him one look, one look that burns deeper than any festering wound, that hurts the heart more than any holes. She gave him what she couldn't say in that moment. There was no snarky remark, not now. Not anything to say about it.

She takes off at a sprint.

Karen runs over to Frank.

"Shouldn't we go after her?"

Frank turns his head to Karen, nearly forgetting why they were there.

"Karen."

She looks at him, a fiery determination in her movements.

He breathes for a moment, her scent so near to him. He couldn't have imagined ever being this close to her. Wasn't this some rule of nature being broken? That the devil could fall in love with such a beautiful avenging angel.

He couldn't see that she thought the same of him.

She places her hand on his cheek, in that moment they were both so exhausted of the constant struggle. He couldn't tell what she saw when she looked at him. He thought, after a time, that she never wanted to see him again. It was barely enough to keep living, after he had killed all the people who had killed his family, and had alienated Karen past her ever being able to look at him again.

Then Rawlins had come out of the woodwork and here they are.

He can't say the words, not now, not properly. How long had it been? Did he even qualify to experience something so human when he was nothing but a monster?

"Frank."

A scream comes from down the hallway.

They exchange a moment of horror before following it.

Sky finds it easily enough.

She walks leisurely down the stairs. Her eyes are foggy with tears, but her teeth are grinding. She places her feet carefully and enters their den.

It's a large basement, all cinderblock and not as dark as she expected. It's one large area with the support beams naked throughout the place. To her left it goes on for a long time, rows and rows of hospital beds that are as orderly as they are insidious.

Half of them have a victim.

She turns to look to her right. There are men on couches, eating, there's some cooking what look like scrambled eggs. They chuckle and a few of them play cards. She looks at them for a moment. Foolish, foolish idiots. They don't realize that they didn't close the hatch. Maybe they're just overconfident assholes who thought her brother was enough to stop them.

Another wave of emotion hits her with that thought.

She chokes, her hand flying to her mouth. She's going to be sick. Or she's going to rip their throats out with her teeth.

Slowly, like every supervillain in every movie, she makes her way over. They don't realize what they've done. Not yet.

She's ten feet from the first cluster when a couple guys look up.

"Hey, are you one of the new nurses? You look young."

That brings the attention of a couple others, but it's when a guard she recognizes looks up that she realizes it's now or never.

"You!"

Her nose scrunches up, and she grabs the first guard closest to her by his blond hair and smashes his face into the concrete. There's a crunch as his nose and the bones in his face break with the collision, blood covers her hands.

There's shouting.

They come at her.

She kicks the leg out of the next one, her hands naturally wrapping around his throat as she breaks it easily. He sags down and she just steps over him. The next throws a punch, his tanned skin makes contact, fracturing his hand to his wrist. He screams and pulls back his limp wrist, but Sky is already there, twisting it. He falls to his knees with the pain, his eyes nothing more than creases of agony. She pulls back and slams down against him, killing him instantly.

She feels the warmth of a bullet graze her skin and the bang of the gun, but her feet down falter. She kicks him, a freckled and thin kid, in the stomach before taking his own gun in her hands, pressing it against his temple and firing.

The men back up, the ones with guns have them out. She has her weight better placed this time though, so when a couple bullets make contact she doesn't fall over. They fire a couple, hitting her in the shoulder, leg, two in the stomach. The metal ping of them hitting the floor is the only sound for a second.

She looks up and screams. "You should never have fucked with my family."

The gun in her hand is a weight as she brings it up, just like how Frank taught her. Both hands pushing against each other, then sight, and squeeze. She unloads the magazine into the twenty men left, killing maybe seven.

The rest come for her, some slightly injured. They start shooting, if only to slow her down. But there is nothing like sheer, unrelenting rage and grief to make a person not feel the bruises forming. She grabs a knife from one of the dead and slices. The guy holds up his arms in defense, but she cuts straight through his fingers and plunges it into his left eye. Pull it out, stab through the brain.

She's screaming as she throws punches, stabs, the bullets hitting her, she just screams. Her whole body is covered in blood, but whenever they land a punch it just succeeds in getting them close enough for her to snap their neck.

Finally, there's one left.

A few had tried to flee but she grabbed them by their ankles and pulled them back. Now the last guys, also covered in blood, is on his knees, hands in the air.

He won't meet her eyes, blood glistens on his bald head. It looks like some kind of modernist painting. She sneers down at him.

"Don't ask me for mercy."

"Please-"

He wanted to say more but she placed the gun against his head and shot him before anything else could be said.

When there were no more to kill, Sky had to stand there and think what to do next.

There seemed to be no more options, maybe because her goal this whole time was to find her brother and now that that was gone – now that he was gone – she didn't know what to do.

Karen and Frank run down the stairs, him first, her second.

Both have guns drawn, but it doesn't take long to realize that they aren't needed.

Sky stands, hands loose by her side, with about thirty bodies around her. Her arms and clothes are wet with blood. She doesn't move, only stares down at one of the dead men, his mouth open.

"Sky?" Karen's voice is quiet.

She startles and shuffles away.

Karen's heart breaks when she looks at the child. She knows the kind of horrible loss that she faced, but could never imagine the extent. Karen's lip quivers and her eyes overflow with tears.

Without thinking Karen runs and grabs Sky in a hug.

Sky stands rigid for a moment, all the muscles in her body tensed. Then, she collapses into Karen. She weeps loudly, holding onto Karen's arms tightly. Karen pulls her close, feeling the blood soak her clothes. There's a moment where Karen supports Sky entirely or else she would fall, an angel and a newborn child fresh with blood.

Although Sky is far from a newborn, and the blood is not her mother's.

In a way it's her brother's blood that steeps through.

Then the most unexpected thing happens.

Frank gently engulfs them both.

They Karen looks at Frank, Sky between them, supporting each other.

One fucked up family.

 **Author's note: I'm sorry it took so long but here it is! And don't worry, Chapter 15 is the finale I promise. Hope you're having an amazing day!**


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